The Skeleton Soldier Failed to Defend the Dungeon

The merchant giant upon the sea, Consul of Freedom Nexmond, straightened his bent back. The merchant guild usually worked as a web of equals, each branch independent yet connected. Yet some groups, entrusted with the guild’s most vital tasks, took on a faint semblance of rank. It wasn’t authority, but merely a symbol: the mark of a member ready to sacrifice themself for whatever the cause demanded.

Nexmond stood tall. The target was set, the operation prepared, and the betrayal was already in play. Yet, even with the knives at his throat, surrender was not an option.

If I must die... then I will die standing.

”Captain, what is this? Refusing a search in plain sight?”

”Not at all. This way.”

Nexmond led the soldiers past the deck and cabin, down to the deepest hold.

”This is where we keep provisions and ordinary cargo,” Nexmond explained.

The border patrol didn’t bother to request keys. ”Break them open and search all of them.”

”Yes, sir!”

The lock was sheared off with a cutter, and the lid thrown back.

Clang! Clank!

”This isn’t it.”

”Not here either.”

”Check the lower stacks!” the commander of the patrol barked impatiently.

Riiiiip!

They tore the wood apart, but nothing suspicious appeared.

”Beans.”

”Coffee beans.”

”Pumpkin... looks like seeds.”

”Looks like? Do it properly!”

”Confirmed, they’re pumpkin seeds.”

”Search the food stores too!”

The results were the same.

”Dried fish.”

”Beef.”

The soldiers tore through every crate, barrel, and sack. All of it matched the ledgers to the last measure, with not a speck of contraband. There wasn’t even the usual smuggler’s excess. Each box that yielded nothing only deepened the commander’s scowl.

”...”

”Haha. Anyone can make mistakes. We’ve always trusted the border patrols. Perhaps our rivals had spread false rumors? Next time, a little more faith...”

”Shut it.” The commander ground his teeth as he turned. ”Did you search the captain’s quarters? Thoroughly?”

”Yes, sir. Nothing.”

Nexmond kept his face calm. He had been ready to buy time with blood and coins. He had been ready to die. However, the cargo... had vanished.

How? Did a sailor act without my knowledge?

He scanned his men, each weathered face steeled with confusion.

No, none of them.

Even his first mate, Mitsy, who’d been ready to blow the patrol sky-high, looked utterly lost. Those prosthetics had been the cutting edge, a prize worth more than every ship in his fleet. Now, they were gone. Perhaps fortune itself had intervened.

Nexmond put on the mask of polite confusion. ”I truly don’t know what you expected to find. Tell me, and perhaps I can help you look for it.”

The commander’s suspicion didn’t waver. ”What trick is this? Troops, search again! From the start!”

Faces turned uneasy. Doubt gnawed at the soldiers’ bravado.

Suddenly, flames erupted from a shop nearby.

Fwoosh! BOOM!

”The command ship! The command ship is burning!”

Fwooosh!

The fire roared so fiercely that it devoured even the flame-proof sails. The patrol’s headquarters blazed before their very eyes.

The commander’s jaw dropped. ”What... what is this?”

Even Nexmond could scarcely believe it.

The heavens favor us. Or if not the heavens, then I will call this heaven from today.

”Raise the anchor! Set sail!”

Thud!

As his men scrambled, Mitsy kicked one lagging soldier square in the backside, but the imperials were too frantic to care.

Fwooosh!

Twelve sails unfurled across four towering masts. A brisk, blessed wind caught them at once, carrying the vessel swiftly from port. The dangerous cargo was gone, but the danger itself remained. They would have to unload their cover cargo at quieter harbors elsewhere. For now, they needed only to escape.

Shhhhhh! Crash!

The gulls scattered. ”Caw! Caw!”

Waves slapped cheerfully against the hull, the sea and the wind with them. When at last they reached open waters, far along the coast where no one could fault them for sailing free, Mitsy broke the silence.

”C-captain... if you’d hidden it, you should have told me. I nearly lost my temper back there. I wanted to blow them sky-high!”

”Violence is for when negotiations fail, not before. Surely you have that much sense.”

”So what happened? When did you hide them?”

The captain almost wanted to claim the credit. Almost.

In the end, he shook his head. ”I didn’t.”

Mitsy’s eyes bulged. ”What? Then where...”

”It vanished. That’s the truth. I swear, it was there. I checked it myself even after we docked.”

Yet, it was gone. Nexmond’s mind worked swiftly. The fire had not been a chance. Considering the timing and the perfection, none of this was a coincidence.

”Someone took it.”

***

Every time the flames flickered, ash scattered into the air and rained down. The crimson blossoms of fire left nothing behind as the fire spread across the water.

Once the other ships drifted away, the blaze itself would collapse and drown. However, the flames cared nothing for logic. They only wanted to consume! They swept across everything, exhaling black smoke as if they meant to erase the world.

Rumble!

A mast burned down from its base and crashed across the deck.

”Do you... like playing with fire?” Isaac asked me.

I shook my skull. I still remember the flames that never died, even on water, that burned me alive. The heat lingering on my fingertips slowly cooled.

With a strangely wistful tone, Isaac explained, ”From now on, you’ll command many things. Some are like fire. They’ll seem born only to destroy, but if you bind and wield them well, nothing is more useful... or beautiful.”

The flames upon the sea must have stirred old memories, because he grew silent after that.

I slipped off the burning wreck and stepped onto the merchant guild’s ship. The patrol was gone. The deck still rang with confusion.

”Took it? Who... how could anyone have—?”

”They knew what we carried. Someone leaked it. We have to trace where the breach began.”

The ship’s pace quickened, sails straining with the wind. I thought it was time to show myself. Going too north wouldn’t be good for me.

I set foot upon the deck.

Tap.

The sailors froze.

”Wh-who are you?!”

”Where did you even come from?!”

They surrounded me quickly, fear hidden behind bluster. Yet, a single ripple of Fear shut them down.

”Urgh!”

”Aaagh!”

They staggered back, collapsing with white faces. Even the seasick sailor didn’t join the circle; he simply dropped in place, too shaken to move.

”Who I am doesn’t matter. You’re the captain, right?” I asked.

My gaze fell upon the one man in multicolored garb. He lingered at the back, studying me quietly.

Then he stepped forward, unflinching. ”Yes. I am.”

”Ha. A man with backbone. He doesn’t flinch at a cheap threat.”

He didn’t just have a backbone. His strength was real. I could feel the weight of it, like he was measuring me just as carefully as I did the same thing to him.

”He’s even appraising your value. Go on, shock him.”

I raised my hand.

Wooong...

The air trembled and tore apart. From within the void, something slowly slid out, something I had hidden inside the inventory. The captain’s eyebrow twitched, his lips trembled, and his pupils dilated. I could see the tiniest cracks in a mask of calm.

”There. That fleeting instant is his true reaction. Anything longer is just a performance.”

Shhhk.

I returned the object to the void. The air closed and was empty once more. Every eye fixed upon the space where nothing remained, especially the captain’s.

”Do you want it back?”

There was no evidence, only a single conjuring trick. If it were Yube or Blackberry, I knew how they’d react. However, this was someone new.

How would he react?

***

The captain shook his head. ”No.”

”What you seized is... priceless. Compared to the power you just displayed, it is nothing.”

”You’ll just... give it up?”

The captain’s genuine and profound expressions mirrored Yube and Blackberry’s, unnervingly sincere. It wasn’t flattering or bargaining, but something stronger. This was even a step ahead of that.

”This seems too important to be bluffed away.”

”No, that one is serious,” Isaac said solemnly.

He’s serious?

”Even more than serious...”

Isaac’s words trailed into silence.

Captain Nexmond drew a card from his coat. I recognized the five-pointed star on the card at once, and Ruby’s lecture echoed in my mind.

That’s Druze’s Star. Inverted, it’s the sigil of the Fallen Serer. Narrowed, it’s the Unnamed Egg of Baha’s Faith. Fill it, and it becomes...

The black card had a pentagram, the emblem of the merchant guild. Nexmond didn’t stop at one card.

Shfft.

Two. Three. Four...

Swoosh.

Five.

I stared, speechless. The captain who had ferried the Empire’s most forbidden prosthetics now extended five black cards to me, each marked with the guild’s sigil.

He spoke with a steady voice.