Mad Toffad's Keep

by Zack Finley

  We reminded each other to set our combat spells and teleported to our separate destinations.

  I landed in a secluded grove just upriver from Omba. I was not sure why one of our bargemen had it in his teleport list, but it seemed a great place to picnic with a lover.

  For me, its main attraction was its seclusion. I infiltrated the Omba area totally unseen. My mind reading app was set to locate anyone, including mages, within a mile of me. Dealing with any mages had to be our first priority.

  I expanded the sweep another mile and then to its maximum. It was a relief to confirm the Omba operation would not include any mages unless one teleported in later. I set the app to send a pulse to detect for mages every 10 seconds within the full sweep area and to raise the alarm for any anomaly. While the high-level scan required little to no magic to sustain, each pulse doubled that. Part of me wanted a continuous pulse, but the more rational me wanted to avoid wasting magic whenever possible.

  Even with the monitor, as we learned last night, this wouldn't alert us to mages hiding behind mundane masks. That just made me inspect each mundane carefully. We'd also learned from Inoa it would not detect mages hidden in a shielded room or dwelling. Inoa was working on an add-on spell to identify shielded areas.

  She had warned it would take more than a simple pulse to detect mages inside a properly designed room with a good mind ward. She wanted to do some field trials before sharing her add-on, to avoid nasty surprises. Until we had our new app, she urged us to be mindful of its limitations.

  I studied my mind app focused on Omba and its environs. While most people I detected were clustered inside or next to Omba, there were small groups of between one to eight people scattered on both sides of the river. Only one outside group needed to be eliminated. That nest of pirates were waiting to attack any traffic coming up the river that got past Omba.

  From them, I learned Omba was the center of pirate operations in the region. For years, the residents of Omba limited themselves to picking off discrete high value or vulnerable cargos. Never too many and never in a way that linked directly back to the town. They made most of their money by fencing stolen property and slaves for most of the criminals in the region.

  Omba residents wouldn’t attack mage barges, taking advantage of the unwritten law that mages only get involved if mages were threatened.

  I suspected mages assigned to the Augun King's Guard never traveled by barge. This meant Omba was free to plunder rural Augun without interference as long as it kept a low profile.

  Omba residents killed or enslaved rival pirate bands targeting river traffic immediately around the town. This caused pirates and other criminals to avoid competing against Omba. Instead, they sold their plunder from farther afield on Omba’s black market.

  The coup had changed everything. Before anyone in the area heard of the assassination attempt, Omba-based pirates captured every barge within 10 miles. They didn’t stop until the barges quit coming.

  The pirates I was reading with my app were angry because they only captured three barges Omba was too busy to deal with. They sank their barges, expecting to refloat and sell them once traffic resumed on the river. There was always a brisk business in used barges.

  What this group of cutthroats wanted was a shot at the barges captured by Omba. They suspected these were stashed in a hidden backwater. Pirates had scoured the area for years looking for Omba's hidden plunder. As far as these pirates knew if anyone had located them, they hadn't lived to tell anyone.

  No independent pirate could afford to directly attack any Omba shipment, even if it was the only barge on the river. They knew Omba had already sent several barges to Augun loaded with loot and slaves.

  I contacted Ramda; I needed to speak with King Rufix.

  When she commed me back, I told her about the situation in Omba and wanted to know whether the king wanted us or the king's guard to handle it. It was one thing to kill foreign raiders attacking Augun citizens. It was another thing for two foreign mages to potentially wipe out a town filled with Augun citizens. Even if they were criminals.

  Argon and I could remove all guilty parties from the town, but it would be bloody. The end result was going to be the same, those who committed capital crimes would die, but the political fallout could be problematic.

  Rufix told us to execute anyone who had committed a capital crime. He'd have Olive standby ready to bring in a small band of king's guard to help secure the riverway. He would include a detachment for Omba in his first charter barge to head up the river.

  He was chastened the piracy had been going on under his nose for generations. I told him there would be more work for his king's guard once we knew who the townspeople were collaborating with.

  Rufix agreed to award three more barges to our bargemen militia. He also agreed to offer a nice reward for any bargemen completing trips from Augun to Asme and Flom.

  I coordinated with Olive, telling her we didn't want her troops arriving until active combat had passed. I didn't want to hurt a friendly arriving unannounced on the battlefield.

  She agreed. I left her figuring out where to scrounge sufficient troops and supplies to garrison Omba.

  Thankfully that was not my problem.

  House-by-house I used my mind reading app to gather intel and to determine whether someone deserved a second chance.

  The blacksmith's compound was an armed camp of those opposed to the piracy. These residents had always suspected there was something unlawful going on but learned not to ask too many questions. They just ignored inconsistent stories, neighbors' sudden wealth, odd jokes and knowing winks. This changed when their neighbors quit hiding behind a pleasant facade and began openly raiding barges.

  They were told they could help or they could die

  The town's only temple was the other refuge for those opposed to murder and robbery.

  Each refuge had less than 40 people in them, with a high percentage being children. I decided these folks needed to remain inside their compounds during our attack.

  The Omba pirates were ignoring them, expecting the dwindling food supplies to change their neighbors' minds.

  I skimmed the pirate leaders and decided we should stun them and let someone peel them later. They would be a treasure trove of information and contacts for the wider conspiracy.

  The plundered barges were located near the slave pens. Anyone not affiliated with Omba piracy could not navigate the narrow channel unless they could manipulate or remove a bunch of trees.

  The Omba group had two foresters who convinced the trees to hide the barge channel from prying eyes and prevent any but Omba barges from navigating it. Almost 100 trees had to move branches to allow traffic to pass. Many of the trees were centuries old.

  I found the two foresters asleep in their hut near the hidden channel. While they were clearly adults, their mental pattern was childlike. They loved their trees but feared and hated the foreman assigned to punish them.

  They were victims who needed to be taken care of not harmed.

  There was a handful of guards watching the slave pens. They were anticipating a shipment leaving tonight and had already picked out a few of the women they planned to load last.

  Guilty.

  I found few others in the town worthy of any mercy. Some of the households included female slaves who did all the cooking and cleaning. They were also expected to service any man who visited the household. These slaves had some type of enchanted anklet which prevented them from leaving the house.

  Some male slaves were kept in the barns. They had a different anklet. The men thought the anklet would kill them if they wandered out of their designated area or if they tried to harm any townsperson.

  No one had tested it after one slave was killed to illustrate the anklet's effectiveness. The female slaves were mates to the workers in the barns. Both served as hostages to each other's behavior.

  Argon warned me as she ‘ported in. I gave her a quick kiss. She confirmed Findot was making
the rounds of the slave camps starting outside Asme.

  I shared my annotated mind reading app with her, showing who needed to be saved and who killed.

  We split up the remaining households to complete our canvas before finalizing our attack plan

  We ran into a problem with several of the households. The adults were villainous, but they had children. We identified 12 children all under the age of 10.

  I messaged Ramda. "Do you have anywhere we can bring 12 small orphans? Their entire families are murderous scum, but that isn't their fault."

  "Let me check."

  While I worked with Ramda, Argon discussed what help might be available in Klee with Alba.

  "Our orphanages are turning children away," messaged Ramda. "Will there be any villagers left who can help them?"

  "I don't know, but it is the best option available."

  Alba reported the orphanages were full in Klee and they had been for as long as she could recall.

  I guess we'd just tell the non-pirates holed up in Omba they were now parents, per king's orders.

  I knew that didn't satisfy Argon. She had no better option to suggest.

  Having good guys and bad guys commingled was going to complicate this assault.

  We debated whether we needed a teleport location near the slave pens before we started the assault on the town and decided one of us could run there in only a few minutes. Besides, the guards were too busy talking about their upcoming orgy to pay a lot of attention to the town.

  The only ones walking around town were pirates and needed to be silenced with the first attack wave.

  The town hall only had bad guys in it. If we didn't pull out one of the three leaders in time to keep them from suffocating, I wouldn't lose any sleep.

  The first combat spell layer punched out the pirate guards making their rounds. It then pinned all doors inside the town shut. I used my force magic for the doors to spare Argon. The next spell tier replaced all the oxygen with nitrogen in the buildings where we had no need to remove anyone alive.

  The rest of the spells would need us to trigger them when we were ready.

  We subdued one building at a time. I started with the town hall. Argon took the first kid-infested building. Stealth was the most important requirement until we took the last guard down.

  I formed a force field air bubble around my head and prepared to enter the town hall at Argon's command.

  The start of the operation was oddly anticlimactic. A few doors creaked and some thumps as the guards died, but otherwise no sound. It took seconds for everyone in the town hall to lose consciousness. I grabbed the main leader and his assistant and teleported to the place I entered the building. I hit them with a stun and decided we didn't need the third man.

  I used my preset teleports to get to the next three buildings per our original battle plan. We'd decided to stun the slaves and leave them where they were to give us time to assess the enchanted anklets. I swapped out the oxygen, stunned then formed force air bubbles around any innocent while I left the others. Once the bad guys were dead, I brought the oxygen back and 'ported or ran to the next building.

  Argon was making good progress. The buildings with the children naturally took longer. I was finished in town first and used Argon's best combination spell of invisibility and sound muffling to mask my dash to the slave pen area.

  I found a good tactical position and sent her the teleport coordinates so she could join me. There was only a heartbeat between my sending and her arrival.

  I reviewed my mind reading app. Now Omba only had two bad guys left alive, and they were stunned. A clean sweep.

  We preconfigured the rock attacks on the slave guards. With a word, they were down. Argon went to help the foresters. I went to talk to the slaves.

  I messaged Olive it was time for the king's guard to arrive. I told her she had to tell the survivors they were now required to care for the 12 orphans.

  The captives in the slave pen weren’t sure what happened to the guards. Everyone began talking at once as they surged toward the edge of the pens to see what happened.

  No one spotted me until I climbed onto the guard platform. I had forgotten and left my invisibility spell active during my approach. When I became visible, all talking stopped. The slaves panicked as they tried to get as far from me as possible.

  I tried to calm them. I told the captives that King Rufix of Augun had authorized this rescue operation. This inspired another round of chatter. I waved to get their attention again. “All of the Omba pirates have been executed by order of the king. Augun King’s Guard will be arriving shortly to release you and restore order.”

  I could tell when they started to believe. Several collapsed crying and hugging one another. Others jumped around cheering.

  I felt satisfaction in what we'd accomplished.

  Argon joined me walking hand-in-hand with her foresters. They were adult in size, but their mental images were those of younglings. She was walking with them back to Omba but urged me to meet Olive via teleport.

  I briefed Olive on what we had, including our 12 orphans. As we talked I removed the force fields on all sites but the temple and blacksmith. She agreed to take the two stunned pirates back to Augun for questioning. I told her we would take care of the enchanted anklets and the pirate's nest across the river.

  I verified the atmospheres in the buildings were safe to enter, then provided a hole in the middle of town and a pile of dirt to make it easy to dispose of the dead.

  She agreed with my suggestions to leave everyone we'd stunned alone until they needed to be moved and to use her emergency powers to draft every adult left alive into the Augun militia.

  Argon arrived with her foresters in tow. Olive and her king's guard seemed familiar with the forester's condition. One of guard relieved Argon and shepherded them to a grove of trees to wait. Olive assured them she would get them some fruit to eat very soon. The foresters seemed fine with that. They followed their guide like small puppies.

  Argon was livid. She had even hidden her feelings from me until the foresters were safely across town. Such childlike innocents were welcomed into any home in Jaloa. They were cherished and nurtured. She had never heard of any being mistreated before now.

  She was regretting how quickly their tormentors died. Unfortunately, you could only kill someone once.

  Olive was as horrified as Argon. Abusing these gentle souls was one of Jaloa's great taboos. I suspected I didn’t understand the full context. I was too busy being appalled by the rampant mass murder, torture, rape, and slavery.

  Argon made quick work of the "enchanted" anklets. The anklets on the male slaves had no enchantment. I suspected they used some other method to kill the first slave and convinced the captives it was magic.

  They might have been influenced because the ones on the female slaves did have an enchantment. The anklet was linked to a small node embedded in the door jam. Most had no charge left, but we found one with enough charge to show us how it worked. If the anklet got within a few feet of the node, it triggered a miniature force spell which pushed a small blade into the ankle. The blade was on a spring and once the force surge eased the blade retracted.

  The pieces were shoddy and mass produced. Argon put two into her pouch to analyze later.

  Olive decided she had too many other priorities to take the time needed to straighten out this mess. She had Gera ‘port in from Asme and put him in charge of Omba. He would organize the cleanup and assess what supplies and barges were stockpiled here. Gera could then coordinate with Ramda, Lt. Brik, and Sgt. Bomes on the priorities and where things needed to move first.

  When Gera arrived, he immediately apologized for having missed this group of villains in his trip upriver with the Augun King's Guard only days before.

  Argon reminded him he had had a very different responsibility then. I was happy to note Gera no longer believed this was a sufficient excuse to allow evil to prey on the innocent. Gera had gained significant confid
ence and skill in a very short time.

  Argon shared our mind-reading app with him and warned him about the potential for overlooking mages.

  Once he completed this assignment, he'd return to Asme to lead a group of king's guards on a more comprehensive raider sweep down the river to Omba.

  We 'ported to a point on the river nearest the pirate nest I spotted earlier. Only one of the eight pirates was outside. I layered the force spell to hold the door shut. Argon crafted the complete oxygen swap. I lined up a rock to the head for the man outside. Argon took charge and launched the attack with a word.

  We messaged Gera to send a few of the militia across the river to remove the weapons and supplies stored at the pirate's nest. We said there was no hurry, but it might be good if they didn't leave the bodies there for more than a day.