Mad Toffad's Keep

by Zack Finley

  All of us wanted to have proof of the impending coup in Losan before the meeting, but this now seemed unlikely. By the time we had proof, it might be too late to prevent the coup.

  Tomorrow's meeting would require us to determine whether any of King Arvich's companions were traitors. If we were lucky enough to identify the traitor, we had to lock him down before he could send a message. Inoa and Argon agreed to meet after dinner to formulate battle plans. Inoa intended to stand with us outside the meeting room in Losan.

  Inoa nixed the meeting with King Ruton. "Better you don't get orders you can't or won't follow," she sent.

  She was right; I intended to meet with King Arvich tomorrow even if King Ruton ordered me not to. I didn’t want an open rift between the duchy and the kingdom. It might come sometime in the future but no need to precipitate it.

  I told Tobron and Argon about Jorvik's insight into the glappner nests.

  Tobron got very excited, "That's right. I remember more details now. It isn't just water, although if submerged for long enough water alone will work. You need seawater for it to work quickly."

  Argon said she could conjure seawater.

  I left Argon and Tobron to work on this. Argon was scheduled to teleport a group of ex-slaves to our Klee headquarters.

  I looked at the action list. Jord already had plenty of help for the first transfer. Most were already in the cafeteria. I checked in with Alba and agreed to come down right away to help with healing.

  "Remember, these are the ones in good shape," Alba sent.

  I arrived just as Argon teleported in with her four refugees.

  Her force magic was lower than I liked to see, but she was very pleased with her recruiting efforts. She'd briefed Marfo while I dealt with the Losan armorers. She still had Kavil and Ylee to visit but didn't think those should be solo trips. She'd spoken with a lot of young villagers and a few retirees ready to join us from all over Klee and Losan.

  Alba was already directing Argon and me to our healing assignments. She reminded us to pace ourselves.

  The cafeteria was bustling. There were some males, but the vast majority of the refugees were female. Those from the Asme area were in marginally better overall condition.

  My mind-reading app indicated most were just relieved to be out of the camps. There was some apprehension, but most had been through so much in the past month they were eager to start anew.

  Findot was everywhere, directing some to the communal washrooms and others to the communal laundry facilities. Long lines were waiting for showers, but those waiting were cheerful. Most in line were holding clean tunics and a towel.

  Many were eating. Some were just sitting and staring.

  We went to the area Alba had set up as a sickbay. There were eight women and one man. I let Argon go first and talk with the women while I assisted the man.

  A raider broke Grik's arm while he was on the slave chain and it healed badly. He was in constant pain. I immediately blocked his pain. I began banishing the bad pieces of bone while we chatted about our new keep and some of the challenges preventing us from moving in right away. I had to use force magic to realign the bones.

  Once the arm looked right, I had Alba look, and she concurred. Grik was a barnta driver on a long hauler. Grik assumed with a crippled arm, he'd never be able to do that kind of work again. I assured him he'd be back to normal in a few days and we needed barnta drivers, too.

  I fixed the soft tissue damage and sent a series of directed healings into the area, using a flare to verify the healing target. Grik’s pain subsided to the discomfort level, and I released the pain block.

  I told him to limit his use of the arm for at least two days, and it should be good as new. "Let someone know if the pain comes back, I could have missed a small bone sliver. It will be weak at first because your muscles atrophied from lack of use. I expect you to begin exercising it tomorrow without weights. Add light weights on day two and shift to heavy ones after that.

  He was extremely grateful but wary. "I don't have anything to pay you with," Grik said.

  "You are part of our family now," I replied. "Get something to eat, wash up, or just rest. We'll get you all settled into quarters very soon."

  Grik was uncertain but he was hungry and for the first time in weeks, pain-free.

  Argon was working her way steadily through her patients, tagging those who needed extensive healing for my attention. She put the tough cases into a medical coma to help ease their distress.

  My first patient had her right breast bitten almost off. The rapists punched her in the abdomen causing serious internal injuries. Her genitals were torn and bleeding.

  I pulsed her with health magic and noted her entire insides lit up. "Alba, help," I sent. "I don't know where to start."

  Alba joined me in a mind link, pointing out the most serious injuries. "We need to get the inflammation down in these areas first. Focus on the organs next, and then use your intuition."

  As a healing assignment, this required less skill than fixing bones. But imagining the brutality, this woman had suffered made me very angry. Knowing whoever did this was now dead was not enough.

  Argon held my hand as we fixed our new family's injuries. Helping them was important, but Argon and I both burned with the need to provide justice, not just for our new family members but for all the innocents damaged by the unknown coup leaders.

  Alba checked on our patients and cleared them to resume normal activities. She cautioned them to let someone know if the pain intensified or if they had any problems with normal bodily functions.

  My mind-reading app showed these women and many others in the room were afraid of men. I slipped away as Alba spoke to each one. I left the issue of how to help them get over their fear with Alba and Argon. I suggested martial training could help reduce the feelings of helplessness. Being able to shred anyone trying to hurt you, gives you a certain confidence. Not a bad set of skills to have anyway.

  I reported to Alba my health magic was at three-quarters and I should have plenty more for the next group. Argon was about the same.

  I was ready to get back to worrying about glappners.

  "If we flood an entire section, do you think the weight will be too much?" I sent to Tobron.

  "We could set up some wards to reinforce the floors, if those floors aren't stressed, we won't do that for the rest," said Tobron.

  "Why don't we fill the warehouses on the bottom floor?" asked Argon. "No need for any reinforcement there. We can fill these areas tonight and drain them tomorrow after our meeting with King Arvich."

  "Works for me," I said. "We can just go in from the wharf."

  "I'd make you wait for me," Tobron said, "but, we need to start getting our people to the keep."

  "It would be better if we could just spray them with sea water without flooding the warehouses," I sent. The logistics of flooding such a huge area bothered me.

  We agreed to do what we could before dinner and put our assignment on the action plan so everyone would know where we were.

  We 'ported to the Toffad’s Keep wharf and walked through the ward to the keep entrance. We prepared to enter the keep. I was in the lead. Argon keyed up our force air helmets and fire shields.

  She prepared to banish the stone blocking the door.

  "Ready?" she sent.

  "Let's do it."

  In a coordinated move, Argon banished the stone, and we both slipped in, moving to our left and keeping our backs tight to the wall.

  The lights we'd left burning were not bright enough to ensure a glappner wasn't stalking us. I sent up new flares in all four quadrants.

  The nearest blocked warehouses were to our immediate left.

  I created a light force shield bubble around us, and gradually expanded it above us and toward the center of the center area. I considered it a trip wire, to give us warning should a glappner try to sneak up on us.

  Argon conjured a platform and stairs in front of the first corridor for a wo
rk area. She was handling the flush, while I provided the security for her to work. It was going to be tricky to fill the rooms with seawater and remove the air without opening the corridor enough to let anything escape.

  She began by cutting a small eyehole at the top of the corridor and began conjuring seawater inside the corridor. She tried to banish air at about the same pace, adjusting both rates as she gained experience with the maneuver.

  I sent her an alarm the moment I felt something brush against the force field tripwire. Argon plugged the eyehole, and we attempted to locate the culprit.

  I strengthened the force field edge toward the tripwire and began expanding it. We strained to see the offender. I pulsed a white-hot blast in front of the force field's leading edge and still could not spot the enemy.

  A snarling glappner broke through the opposite side of the force field and engulfed Argon in its web. She twisted in its grasp, but could not free herself.

  I spun around, kukri slashing at the hairy bands holding my love. She helped guide my strokes and used her force blades to shred its eyes and head. It was too close to blast it, but I kept slashing it with my kukri. Despite our assault, it began jabbing Argon relentlessly with its stinger. I grabbed its head and banished it.

  It took a few moments for the legs and stinger to slow down, making me renew my efforts to hack off its legs and wonder whether a glappner actually had a brain.

  Our normally coordinated combat mind meld had deteriorated in the surprise attack. At least we hadn't teleported out with the glappner. While we could hope it was the only one in the area with us, we had no such assurances and needed to regroup.

  Argon assured me she was uninjured. She apologized for losing it when the glappner had her in its coils. We both acknowledged we needed better knife-range magic. I shared my flesh banishment spell. We both agreed it would be much better to avoid getting close enough to use it, but as a close-in weapon, it was awesome.

  Argon cleaned off the purple goo from her armor and weapons with a water blast. Some poison dripped on her leggings dissolving them. She had to heal the blisters the goo raised on her skin. Definitely, something to avoid.

  I assumed there was at least one more monster inside the area with us. Argon enveloped us in a force and air bubble, with a substantial fire shield surrounding us. She would maintain our life support as I created a half sphere of white-hot flame around us and began enlarging it.

  I decided to cover every surface with flame to keep from being surprised again. I got the idea from the way Argon dealt with our hotel's bug infestation. At the very least, it should herd any remaining glappners into a small area to finish off. They might try to break out, but we should be able to deal with them before they got close.

  Argon resumed her tactical control, maintaining life support and tapping into my fire magic to propagate the flame front. This left me free to monitor for breakouts and prepare to counter any attack. We could attack them with our weapons, but it wasn't clear whether it had any vulnerable parts.

  The white-hot flame front swept through the open area in front of us, engulfing the floor, ceiling, and walls. I banished the heat in our immediate vicinity as Argon manipulated the main attack.

  Puffs of smoke and hissing sounds from the incinerated debris were an erratic distraction. The gouts of smoke forced me to blast the debris with fireballs on the off-chance it masked a glappner. Pirates were slobs, and the distractions were numerous. The old barnta and security areas were now only blackened stone and pools of molten glass.

  The flame front contracted as it neared the area directly opposite of our position. We moved in its direction expecting any remaining glappners to be on the other side of the firewall.

  Argon thickened the sizzling and spitting flame front, promising serious injury to anything that attempted to escape the burn.

  I wrapped the half dome of fire with a force shield sheath, designed to delay anything attempting to leave the fire zone.

  My addition was just in time, as a huge glappner burst through the wall of death. Argon maintained the wall's integrity and continued pushing inward. I reacted to the glappner's escape, with a series of fire, rock and lava blasts directed at its head and chest.

  The flame front burned off several of its legs and all of its hair. Despite being charred and crippled it still shuffled along the floor toward us. This glappner was twice the size of our original opponent. I dropped a slab of stone on it. Then I raised the slab and dropped it again and again.

  Argon continued moving the flames inward. A smaller glappner was trapped in the flame front. It pushed against the flame only to retreat at encountering the force shield. As the flames left it no escape, its efforts became more frantic. I filled the remaining area with near sun plasma flame.

  A mini-explosion caused me to leave the force field in place and remove the flame.

  The charred remains of two smaller glappners remained suspended in the force field. I dropped them to the floor and reduced them to ash.

  I slowly banished the floor slab lying on top of the flat blackened corpse, surrounded by purple and black ooze. I banished its head, before using fire blasts to incinerate the remains.

  While I finished cleaning up, Argon returned to flooding the first set of warehouses.

  I was ready to be done with this and set up at the next corridor. I used Argon’s technique to fill my corridor, just as she prepared to start on the next.

  Not convinced all the glappners died, I left a light force field around us.

  Our water magic was as low as it ever got by the time we had the corridors flooded with seawater.

  We left through the personnel door onto the wharf. Just to have a glappner drop on top of me. By now, I wasn't fucking around and banished its head. When its grip relaxed, its hairy bands remained attached. My armor still resisted its grip. Argon cut me loose with a few knife strokes.

  I tossed its hairy body into the water off the wharf apron. Within seconds, there was a feeding frenzy. At least somebody liked glappners. Argon blocked the door and I 'ported us to our suite.

  ◆◆◆

  Chapter 17

  I got into the shower with my armor and gear on, not wanting to risk allowing any glappner venom to deteriorate it. I tossed my under armor and leggings, they weren’t worth washing. I hung the gear in the clips Argon had installed for them.

  I fetched our new livery someone had stacked by our door. Alba needed our help in her sickbay and 'ported to join her.

  My flesh magic bank had recovered from the earlier healing duties, with no noticeable drain resulting from using flesh magic in battle. While I could imagine banishing hearts of opponents, I needed to be very close for it to be effective. Perhaps this would become our knife range magic weapon of choice.

  Alba was relieved we were back from fighting glappners. Our partners had all known we were in combat and were ready to help if needed. I was just glad we hadn't brought another glappner into the hospital.

  Only six patients needed immediate care. One woman and two men had badly set bones, which Alba had me tackle first. She and Argon were working on the three women with more serious internal injuries, expecting to call on me if they needed the health magic.

  Afleit, the woman I worked on first, was originally from a village near Flom. She was a baker and saw her entire family killed by raiders. The slavers broke her shoulder while she was on the chain and it had healed wrong. I blocked the pain right away and settled her into a medical coma to allow me to work without traumatizing her even more.

  I had a much better appreciation of shoulder design after healing my own. I must also be getting better because I was done in record time, despite having to remove several areas of improperly healed bone and needing force magic to push them back into alignment. After reassembling her bones and soft tissue around the shoulder, I pulsed a healing burst throughout. I found while most of her pain came from the shoulder, she had a lot of internal damage to her abdomen area. Sadly, I now had too
much experience healing this type of trauma. I programmed a series of healing blasts targeting the problem areas, then moved to the next patient.

  Jeek was a large, brawny man from a village outside Asme. He had been kept in the largest slave camp where I fought the wizard. He was a blacksmith and a captain in the militia before the raiders came. The raiders bashed in his head and slapped him in chains. Jeek had a dent in his skull and a non-stop headache. None of his family had survived the raid.

  Alba recommended he remain conscious while I removed the bone fragments from his brain. She was worried removing them might trigger convulsions or worse. She suggested a series of healing pulses before I removed the deepest bits. If we'd gotten to him immediately after his injury, she would have recommended removing all the bone first, then healing. But his brain had already begun to adapt to the bone fragments, and she thought a slow and steady approach would be more effective.