Chapter 165 - Open Sesame: Into The Swamps arc (20)

The former headquarters of the Church was the best-suited building for Arnold and his summons. It had the housing space that could fit over five hundred people in it, there was a constant power supply for them as well (not that they had a need for it), and one of the main attractions were the prison cells that were located at the bas.e.m.e.nt of the building. They were once used to hold the people whom the church captured, but now most of them were empty. Right now Arnold was inside one of these cells.

The prison cell was barely six feet by four. The walls were the same thick grey stone as the lower floor of the building, but instead of a wide window with a flower box, there was a mean barred opening with thick metal bars and no glass. It was no brighter inside than the gathering gloom of dusk, mainly because there was no light source outside the building. The bed was a plank of wood on legs, there was no mattress, no cushioning and only one thin blanket. There was nothing else to do inside but to stare at stone walls. To look at the paint that had started to chip off as time passed, or gouged by other prisoners - anything to pass time, slowly going mad, theorizing absurd meanings from the wall's blank stare.

Amanda was sitting in the middle of the cell, her face was more expressionless than that of a corpse. Arnold had told Allen to take care of the base while he handled the issue at hand, he had also left about 50 of his summons to help him out, just in case there was an emergency.

Arnold had brought Amanda inside his domain because he wanted to further interrogate her, as he was afraid that since Alice's memories had been altered, the place she had informed him to be as Devon's base, might not have been the actual location of the base and sure enough, Arnold's guess was right.

"The base is still in Florida..." Amanda's emotionless voice echoed through the jail cell, "but it is deeper inside the swamp... somewhere inside the Everglades national park..."

Arnold looked at her blank eyes which were fixed towards the floor, she no longer could lie to his face or manipulate someone until and unless Arnold told her to do so, thus he was sure, she was telling the truth. He turned towards Talos who handed him a marker and a map of Florida.

Arnold handled them to Amanda and said, "Mark the location where his base is, I don't care if it isn't 100% correct but try to be as accurate as possible."

Amanda took the map in her hands and silently analysed it, a couple of minutes passed then she took the marker and marked a small circle on the map before handing the map and marker back to him.

Arnold went through the area she had marked and nodded his head before instructing Talos to cast a hologram of the same location that Amanda had marked on the map. He did so, hoping that he'd be able to some clue which might help him to locate the exact location of the secret base of Devon, but sadly he couldn't.

The location he was seeing was no glade. There was no sign of humanity there only Ancient Cypress trees loomed out of the murky water and on them were the vines that twisted beautifully around their infected trunks of decay and bright moss, the scenery looked oddly satisfying. As if two pictures joined one above the other, the moon painted in just added to the mood while the colours disappearing into the night slowly cascading away as the sun finished setting. But something was off... at first look, anyone would've ignored the almost symmetrical placement of trees and other smaller plants which looked like they had been placed there by someone and didn't grow on their own...

He asked Amanda to verify the location and after closely looking at the holograph of the area she nodded like an obedient dog. Arnold breathed a sigh of relief. At least now he knew where his enemy was hiding.

He opened a portal which led back to the base, then grabbed Amanda's hand and dragged her out of the portal, with Talos at his toes. Arnold needed to inform Nathan about his findings and hopefully, Nathan would have some news for him as well.

****

"So that's why we couldn't find Devon's base no matter how hard we tried..." Nathan mumbled and stroked his freshly shaven chin, "That's a useful piece of information there. Now that we do know where the bastard had been hiding, we can mount an attack on him."

Arnold had just informed him about whatever he knew regarding Devon's secret base, through the new communication channel that Talos had made from scratch so that Arnold could have a secured communication with anyone at any time. Talos, Allen, and Amanda were present inside the room along with Arnold, while Nathan and Nina were present on the other side of the screen.

"We could, but let's not make any hurried decision..." Arnold advised Nathan, "Knowing his location won't do us any could until and unless we get rid of the monsters that are freely roaming around the swamps. You told me about what happened there when you went there for the last time. Do you want history to repeat itself? Even with my elemental abilities, I won't be able to raise a bridge that would be strong enough for the troops to travel through the swamp. Thus we need to carefully plan our way through the swamp first and focus on fighting later."

Nathan immediately went silent, he knew what Arnold was saying was correct, just knowing Devon's location won't do them much good, until and unless they are able to get rid of the monsters who occupied the swamps. The excitement had gotten the best of him and he couldn't think straight for a moment.

"You're right. We need to prepare ourselves first." He mumbled after realising his mistake, "But what can we do? The moment we enter the swamps, our movement gets restricted and we are like sitting ducks waiting to be killed by mermen, lizardmen and whatnot..."

"Just leave it to me. I'll take care of the problem." Arnold smiled and waved his hand around.

"But didn't you just say your abilities won't be enough to help us out?" Nathan inquired once again, thinking he heard him wrong the first time.

"My elemental abilities aren't the only set of abilities I have, now do I?" Arnold look confused at Nathan's ridiculous remarks.

'Is something troubling him? Maybe I should ask him about it later...'

"Oh right... right... sorry, my bad. I forgot that you were a creationist as well. Looks like I'm overworking myself a lot more these days, haha." Nathan let out a forced laugh and quickly changed the topic, "But still, you'll need to visit the swamp first in order to make some gears that would help us, or else the gears that you make might not be compatible for the actual operation."

"Yeah, I know that that's why I'll be going there tomorrow morning," Arnold replied.

"Are you out of your mind?" Nathan shrieked and stood up, "It's too dangerous for you to go alone! And as far as I know, most of your summons are bulky so they would last long in the swamps either."

"Hmm... you do have a point," Arnold mumbled.

Nathan was correct, apart from his zombified warriors and automatons, almost all of his summons were bulky and heavy including Dread and Asterios, which meant they wouldn't be able to run or charge at the enemies as freely as they used to.

Talos was the lightest among Arnold's summons, so he could be of some use, but without his transformation, he might not be able to deal much damage to creatures of the swamp and if he transformed into the Orc demon, then he wouldn't be able to move around because of the weight problem. Although he could help as long as there were enough monsters or summons to take hits for him.

The lava hounds definitely had the agility to move freely in the swamp but it'll take time for them to adjust to the new environment, and their defence was low as well so they wouldn't be much of a meat shield and might not be able to protect him. Although Arnold was sure his automatons and zombies should be enough to deal with the swamp monsters for an hour while [Void travel] was in cooldown, still he wanted to hear what Nathan had to suggest, as he wouldn't have stopped Arnold from leaving if he didn't have a plan prepared.

"So what do you suggest I do? After all, I need to visit the place once." Arnold crossed his arms in front of his chest.

"Why don't you take Nina with you? She's a swordswoman and has light equipment on her so I don't think her movement would get restricted and if it came to worse, I'm sure you'd be able to escape from the danger."

"No!" Arnold exclaimed, "I'm not putting her in any danger, you get that?"

"Arnold, I can take care of myself." Nina intervened in her defence, "I'm not the same girl whom you rescued from death five years back."

"I have no doubts that you can, but still it's too risky-"

"Well, I'm not letting you go there alone either."

"Alright alright, stop fighting like a couple." Nathan tried to solve their argument, "Let's do this then, if Nina wants to go she can, but she'll have to obey your commands, no matter how absurd they might be, is that okay with you Arnold?"

"Well... yeah it is." He mumbled

'if things went wrong, we can go and hide inside my domain so it'll be fine.'

"And with you Nina?" Nathan turned towards her.

"Yes, it's alright." Nina replied.

Nathan let out a long sigh and smiled, "See problem solved! Just get here and you can plan your next move afterwards."

But none of them were listening to him anymore. They were busy having their own coded conversation.

"Open sesame?" Nina looked at Arnold through the screen and smiled, referring to Arnold's [Void Travel] ability.

"Open sesame." Arnold nodded in reply, "See you at your apartment?"

"Sure, I'll be there as soon as I can." She replied and left in haste.

"Guys... am I missing something here?" Nathan looked at Nina then at Arnold then back at Nina like he was watching a tennis match.