Chapter 368: Ransom and Descent

After what seemed like forever, Hart and Baelin finally got their composure back, though tears of laughter still swam in their eyes and the occasional chuckle escaped them.

“So,” Baelin said, a huge smile on his face. “You said you have a similar story to share? Mine was the appetiser, so let yours be the main course!”

The Champion wiped his eyes. “You want the story, well here you go. When I was about…maybe fifteen, the Ash Ravens—that’s my mercenary band—had gone down to the Rhinean Empire for work. Word had travelled up to Thameland about these two lords who were having themselves a little religious dispute.”

He made a pair of fists. “The two of ‘em prayed to the four elements, but one thought fire was the greatest and the other thought earth was. I can’t even remember their names now, but let’s just call them fire lord and earth lord for the sake of the story. Anyway, I didn’t really get all the philosophical crap, but from what I understood, the entire business had been on the civil side…until everything changed when Mr. Firelord attacked. You see, ‘bandits’ sacked one of the temples in Mr. Earthlord’s territory. Only problem was that when some of these ‘bandits’ got caught, they started screaming that they should be ransomed to their families.”

“What’s that mean?” Alex asked.

“Oh, it’s a funny practice,” Hart said. “Say, when someone like you or me or, y’know, bandits get captured, we’d have our heads lopped off or get thrown in a dungeon. Or both. But, when knights and rich nobles get captured, their families pay good gold to get them back. So they get to sit tight, made all comfortable, while their families get gold together. Not fair, no, but good business if you can catch one.”

“Huh…so when they said they wanted to be ransomed back, it came out that they were knights,” Alex reasoned.

“Right on the mark. As it turns out, they were all Mr. Firelord’s knights. Not a good look, so you know, of course that meant war.”

He made a walking motion with two of his fingers. “So, we go down there, hired by Mr. Earthlord, but one of his sons is put in charge. Well, Mr. Earthlord Junior’s a right ass. Arrogant as an eagle but not nearly as bright, even though he thought he was. But that’s alright, we were gettin’ paid so we let him believe what he wanted and we just did what we’re good at. We won battles for the little shit he should’ve lost.”

Hart chuckled. “Now this is where he reminds me of your Mr. Yem. See, he had this set of full plate armour from his daddy. Tackiest thing you’d ever want to see: all gold inlaid and studded with gems like he was trying to outshine the sun. He even had servants polishing it every minute he wasn’t wearing it.” Hart snickered. “Would you believe he actually brought these four valets into battle just to start the polishing the minute they took him out of it?” Hart shook his head.

“Yes, I actually would,” Baelin said, with an amused smile.

“Anyway, in spite of how gaudy this plate looked, the damn suit was tough as hell. Cutting edge stuff: he could’ve taken a sledgehammer to the chest with that thing on and laughed it off. On top of that, daddy had wizards enchant every plate with all kinds of magic.”

He put his hand over his chest like he was swearing an oath. “On Uldar, I once saw a knight lance him in the chest. Snapped the bloody lance in half and the little bastard didn’t even move. The other knight got dismounted like he’d charged into a stone wall full force. Broke his neck when he hit the ground.”

“Ah yes.” Baelin stroked his beard with interest. “I do recall a set of armour like the one you described being crafted in Generasi some half a decade ago. It was the talk of the warrior community, though mockingly at times. A king’s ransom was poured into it for some of the best armourers in the city to put it together. I could see how it could give one the impression they were invincible.”

“Oh yeah, he thought he was invincible, alright,” Hart grinned. “And, like your Mr. Yem, he went wherever he wanted and did whatever he wanted. Every battle, he’d always lead from the back, sitting on his big, old charger and watching the battlefield from a nearby hill. He wanted to see every detail so much, that he always insisted on keeping his vision completely clear. No obstructions for him. Which meant…he’d always have his visor up.

“Ooooh no,” Baelin, Cedric, Alex and Drestra all said at the same time.

“Oh yeeeeah,” the Champion smiled. “So there he was, sitting on his horse one day, far enough from the battlefield to be out of arrow range—or so he thought—and even if one got lucky and hit him, he figured it’d bounce off his armour. I mean, his face’d be too small a target to hit, right? Well. Bang! Crossbow bolt right to the mouth! The hit took most of his teeth. Infection got the rest, and a good part of his jaw. Last I heard, his daddy said he’d be sipping gruel for the rest of his life!”

Baelin burst out laughing, sending Hart into more fits of laughter.

Drestra shook her head. Cedric grimaced. Alex shrugged.

‘Don’t…don’t get influenced by them, Claygon,’ he thought.

“Oh, what a delight! And it helps illustrate the point!” the chancellor said. “When you are teleporting anywhere, ensure that you account for multiple forms of risk that could be lying in wait! Then mitigate them. Get ready now, I’ll be casting some spells on you.”

With words of power, he cast a flight spell on each of them, followed by a spell of invisibility, orbs of air, and a spell of true seeing. Soon, the Heroes were looking at each other’s translucent forms.

“This is incredible,” Drestra said, marvelling at her companions. “We could go anywhere we want like this. Unseen, flying, and yet be able to see each other.”

“Yeah.” Hart stroked his stubble. “Imagine having entire strike teams cloaked like this. They could just slip into enemy ranks as a group, slaughter their generals in the morning, and then be off for beer and biscuits before lunch.”

“Somethin’ to work on for us. We’d have a helluva lot easier time with a whole lotta dungeons if we had this set up,” Cedric agreed.

“Glad you are enjoying the experience!” Baelin said. “And with that, we have mitigated two risks: we no longer have to worry about the ground’s integrity, and we’re largely safe from attack in our invisible state. So, let's be off to the next location!”

In a flash of teleportation magic, they were transported to the copse of trees Baelin had pointed out earlier, floating just above the ground.

“You see? This way, we do not have to worry about the ground’s integrity. Now, to really show the technique’s worth, please join me in flying higher into the sky.” Baelin’s translucent form smiled, then shot into the air.

Alex exchanged grins with the other Heroes and hurtled after the chancellor with Claygon at his side. He had to admit…despite the seriousness of their situation, he was actually having fun. All the teleporting and flying they were doing had also set his imagination on fire. Getting deeper into teleportation spells couldn’t come soon enough.

They floated up beside the ancient wizard who waited a few hundred feet in the air. “Now, take a look around.”

Alex turned, scanning the landscape. From their height, miles of wilderness spread before them in every direction, and he took it all in as flakes of snow sifted over the ground. He shivered. They were only a few hundred feet up, but the chill ran deep. A woollen cloak suddenly appeared around Cedric’s bare torso, and a trembling Chosen nodded at Baelin in gratitude, pulling it tight around him.

“And now, from this vantage point, we can make the jump for several miles at a time,” Baelin said. “With uninterrupted views of the vista, we can travel long distances. This is why flight magic is the perfect complement to the teleportation shuffle. However, to avoid Yem’s fate, you must always pay attention to your altitude, the cold, wind speed and direction, and the weather and air pressure. Do not make the mistake of thinking, ‘if I fly higher, I will just see farther!’

He took on a grim look and watched the sky. “It might not look like it from here…but if you fly high enough…you shall find only death up there. Now, let us go!”

With a few words of power, Baelin catapulted them through space in a stream of teleportation. The world flashed around Alex: in one heartbeat, he was floating in the sky above a forest, the next, soaring through waves of sights and sounds.

A broad smile took his face.

Being immersed in so much teleportation magic was exhilarating, exciting, yet comforting, like coming home to a warm fire after a long day in the cold wilderness. It was like there was a voice calling to him across time and space, welcoming him.

He wished it could go on forever but Baelin suddenly stopped near a vast, expansive swamp.

“Let’s do that again!” Alex said, whirling on the amused chancellor with the enthusiasm of a child.

“Now, Alex, we should at least pretend that we are adults at times,” he said, smiling at all four Heroes. “And here we are. According to map coordinates and my calculations, this should be the southern end of Crymlyn Swamp. When you recover, Drestra, would you please tell me if we are in the right place?”

‘When you recover?’ Alex thought, taking a look at the other Heroes.

Cedric, Hart and Drestra were bent at the waist, looking more than a little grey, their hands were pressed to their mouths. The Champion was shaking and gagging beneath the heavy pack on his back.

“Are you guys okay?” Alex asked them in alarm.

“They are fine…well, fine might be a strong word,” the ancient wizard admitted.

“Damn right it's a strong word. Flying through the air has its uses, but it just ain’t natural,” Hart managed to choke out.

“What they are experiencing is teleportation sickness. Which is less problematic than you might imagine. As a child, did you ever take to spinning around in a circle until you were so dizzy that you fell over?”

“Uh, yeah, more times than I care to remember,” Alex admitted. He wasn’t always the smartest of children.

“Teleportation sickness is essentially a disorientation-caused nausea akin to motion sickness,” Baelin explained. “When one appears in multiple locations rapidly, the body can become a little…confused. Hence, the nausea.”

“You didn’t warn us about that?” Alex asked.

“It will not kill,” the ancient wizard said. “And, through experiencing, one gains a valuable…well, experience.”

“Feels like my insides’re gonna pour out,” Cedric moaned.

“I nearly threw up in my veil,” Drestra said.

“It’s like ten hangovers at once,” Hart groaned,

“Oh, do not be so dramatic!” Baelin chuckled. “It will pass in mere heartbeats.”

After more than “mere”heartbeats, the Heroes’ translucent forms looked decidedly less grey.

“Hoh,” Drestra sighed. “It will be a long time before I have enough mana to do that. Hopefully, I’ll have the stomach for it, by then.”

“I am sure you will,” Baelin said. “Now, are we in the right spot?”

“We are. And—what’s better—I can point you to exactly where my home is,” she said, adjusting her veil in the wind. “The witches I spoke of live more of a wandering type of life in the swamp. We’ll have to go to my village to ask where they might be this time of year, so do you have the mana to continue teleporting us?”

Baelin chuckled. “Do I ‘have the mana’, she asks. How adorable. Lead the way and I will get us there.”

With Drestra directing Baelin, they travelled through the sky above the Crymlyn, deeper and deeper into the immense swamp. The deeper they went, the more the young wizard realised just how immense it was. If Drestra and Baelin hadn’t been there, he had no doubt they would have gotten lost because the marsh was soon all he could see in every direction. He knew that the Swamp was said to be big—it appeared as a massive swath of land on maps of Thameland—but seeing something on a map and seeing it in-person, especially from the air, were two entirely different matters.

Most trees had dropped their leaves, giving the swamp a ghostly appearance: skeletal tree trunks and branches reached up over misting frost-covered water, seeming to strain toward them as they passed by. Mudholes, shrivelled bog plants, and peat dotted swaths of moss covered ground.

Vulture-like birds—far larger than any bird that flew above Greymoor—screamed to each other. Alex mentally thanked the Traveller that they hadn’t been servants of two blue annis hags hiding in a windmill on a fiery night not so long ago.

A wave of excitement went through him: not many in Thameland could say they’d visited the Crymlyn Swamp’s borders, let alone flying over it and actually meeting the witches who lived there. He was about to live out some of the childhood ghost stories his father used to tell him.

…without the gruesome endings, he hoped.

“There.” Drestra pointed at a series of lines of white smoke to the north. “My village lies there. We should descend and come in over the water. And maybe drop the invisibility. Things were…tense, when I was last here, and it wouldn’t do to surprise everyone by appearing out of thin air in the middle of our village square.”

“Spoken with true wisdom, young Drestra,” Baelin said. “Then we will do just that and I will conjure a boat for us to sail to your community’s borders. Discovery awaits.”