Aetherios System: Whirlwind

Chapter 69: Triple Break Out

Alex sat slouched against the wall with his arms folded, putting on the perfect image of a man with no fight left in him. Across the way, Symon caught his eye, flashing a dazzling grin and another exaggerated wink. Alex suppressed a groan in response.

Whatever Symon thought he knew, Alex wasn’t about to encourage it.

The guards yawned at their posts, spears resting against the wall. Then, like clockwork, the hinges creaked and two fresh soldiers marched in, relief written plain on the former two's faces.

Shift change. It happened on the same hour every day. Same routine as always. Which meant the whole ship above was turning over too, patrols being relieved, gunners rotating, and engineers swapping duties. It was the Andreia at its most distracted.

Perfectly on time.

Alex stretched, rubbing at his wrists in a bored gesture, then let his gaze flick briefly to his cellmates. Henry leaned against the wall like a statue, as typical of him, his face was unreadable. Holly was crouched with her arms draped over her knees, eyes half-lidded. Across the corridor, Peter and Doran looked equally idle, as though nothing at all mattered.

And then, there was the smallest of movements shared between them all. Their heads dipping, just barely. Agreements given without a word.

Alex didn’t return the nods. Instead, he shifted his hand down, scratching the back of his left hand against the manacles clamped around his ankles. The metal bit deep enough to break the skin. A thin rivulet of blood welled and dripped from the wound.

The moment it touched the etched glyphs, the iron hissed. Tiny bubbles fizzed across the surface, the sound masked easily by a Henry's well-timed cough.

Alex’s blood, his Wyrm-toxin, didn’t need aether to work. It devoured aether instead, gladly and greedily. The wards etched into the bindings unraveled under its touch, collapsing like brittle parchment left in the rain. One by one, the chains corroded into flaky husks. The metal blackened, then cracked, and sloughed away.

He exhaled slowly through his nose.

The same bleeding hand he shifted awkwardly in the manacles still holding his wrist. More blood dripped, and more quiet sizzles met his ears. The manacles’ light guttered, the last of the wards withering under the toxin’s bite. In minutes, what had once been unbreakable steel was nothing more than a damaged, rusted shell. A push, and it would all crumble.

With just a single wound and some patience, Alex felt the cage around his aether loosen. The dam broke, and his aether surged. It rose in him like fire catching dry wood, roaring happily, eager to be alive.

He started the spell pattern for [Aether Burst]. His skin prickled with heat, and sparks of light shimmered faintly against the walls.

The Urhara soldier guards began to yell, but it was too late.

***

The war room aboard the Andriea was little more than a cramped officer’s chamber. With bare walls containing lanterns that hissed faintly in their sconces, and a heavy oak table that bore the weight of Urhara’s pride as much as it bore the map stretched across its surface. Inked lines sprawled over the parchment, detailing the mountain range, the dungeon gate, nearby village, and the routes of soldier patrols.

Malric’s gloved hand hovered over the map, tracing the paths with calm precision, though his voice carried the hints of agitation. “Request reinforcement,” he said. “We can cordon the range and collapse their exits, it will squeeze them down to a smaller area and give us time for help to arrive.”

Karsali Erenaeth’s fists clenched against the edge of the table.

“Reinforcements? That would be as good as an admission of failure.” Her jaw tightened and her teeth ground audibly. “I am a Knight of Urhara. I was given this command because I am capable of carrying it out. I will not send word to Athrastas that I cannot handle one pack of stray outsiders.”

Malric’s eyes narrowed, the flickering lamplight sharpening his tired face into harsh lines. “Do not let your pride blind you. These Worldstriders are not some backwater rabble. Even your own reports call them unconventional, and dangerous. That is not a foe you crush with mere bravado.”

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The two lieutenants at Karsali’s flanks exchanged fleeting glances, silently damning their leader in their quiet hesitation. She caught their lack of support, her anger flaring hotter than the lantern flames. “You think me reckless?” she snapped back. “Then look to your own cowardice, Mystic. You would have me wait and let others swoop in to claim the credit for this hunt, while I sit here with nothing but excuses to show for it. This mission is my chance, my ascent. If I secure the Striders, I will have the Contribution to push for Magus Tier.”

Malric slammed a hand flat on the table, the map crinkling beneath. “And if you fail, you will not be alive long enough to spend a single point of Contribution.”

The room bristled between the two figures, the lieutenants frozen as if moving would catch their attention and turn that anger on them.

Then came a frantic rap against the door.

“Enter,” Karsali barked without looking away from Malric.

The soldier who stumbled in looked as though he had sprinted from the mountainside itself. His hair was plastered to his face, and his armor askew, with breath coming in gasps. He dropped to one knee, fist pressed to the floor, struggling to find words between deep inhales.

“Well?” Karsali snapped again, her impatience as deadly as her blade.

“It’s… it’s the dungeon, ma’am…” The man’s eyes flicked up, his face was ghostly pale. “There has been a breach.”

The world seemed to still the very air in the room. Karsali felt her blood turn to ice, the strength in her hands faltering. A tremor ran through her fingers, her body betraying her for the first time in years. Malric’s composure fractured as well, his tired, unshaken poise collapsing into a wide-eyed shock that matched the messenger.

A dungeon breach. That was impossible. It was catastrophic.

Karsali’s throat was dry when she finally spoke. “Call for reinforcements,” she said.

***

The underbrush snapped beneath their boots as they cut through the forest, shadows twisting in the half-light of the looming arcane ship above. The Andreia floated like a fortress against the sky. Its bulk blotted out the sun in patches, making the march feel like moving beneath the belly of some colossal beast.

Kate walked at the front, her stolen helm hiding her expression but not the pride in her stride. Behind her, the others fell in ordered lines. Each moved with a predator’s ease, confident with just a touch of arrogance.

All except three.

Tom-Tom’s chains rattled with each step he took, his downcast eyes glaring daggers at the ground. Beside him, Selka kept her head bowed and her face tensely still. And Eric… Eric looked every bit the prisoner he played, though the simmering fire in his eyes was harder to hide. They all played the part well. The image of prisoners shackled, and mentally defeated.

The rest? They were disguised as Urhara hunters. Their armor was all stolen, each piece bloodstained and dented in places, but that almost sold the ruse more than if it had been polished clean.

When the trees broke into a clearing, a skiff awaited them at its center. A squat, utilitarian boat tied to the roots of the Andreia’s shadow. Two Urhara guards lounged near it, their spearbutts set against the dirt and they straightened at the sight of the squad's approach.

“You finally got some, eh?” one called, grinning through his helm.

“Where, how—” the other started, then cut himself short with a shrug. “Guess it doesn’t matter. Less clean-up for the rest of us, I suppose.”

Kate gave no answer to their questions. She only let her gaze bore into them through the narrow slit of her visor, every bit the cold, efficient soldier she was pretending to be. Silence did its work to sell the ruse well enough.

The guards leaned in to check the prisoners, muttering names under their breath as they ticked them off a slate. One stepped onto the skiff while the other drifted to the side, spear butt dragging across the soil.

“Let’s get up there. Lady Karsali will be happy to hear this news.”

One by one, the disguised team climbed aboard, steering their expressions into masks of indifference. The skiff lurched as it lifted from the ground. The ride was smooth, eerily smooth, with none of the jostling of waves a typical boat would have and only the uncanny fluidity of floating through layered currents of aether.

No one spoke.

Save for Tom-Tom, who muttered complaints under his breath until Garret’s elbow dug sharply into his ribs. The kobold growled but quieted, his tail twitching against the chains.

Docking was brisk. The skiff clicked into place against the massive ship’s side, runes flaring faintly before the platform extended with a hiss. Ropes were tied off, and the way aboard opened for them. Two more guards waited beyond.

Kate stepped forward to give a salute before reciting a clipped, deliberately vague report about “resistance,” “skirmish,” and “secured targets.” Her words lacked any real detail, but her tone dripped with the tired authority of someone who’d already done the hard work and wasn’t inclined to explain it all.

The guards gave them sidelong looks—part suspicion, and mostly apathy—but voiced no challenge. The day was long, and no one seemed eager to shoulder extra responsibility of filing someone else’s paperwork.

“Take them below,” one ordered, waving toward the stairwell that spiraled down into the ship’s belly.

And just like that, the wolves had walked into the sheep’s pen, their fangs hidden beneath stolen wool.

Kate had just gotten everyone down the stairs to the second deck when she heard another hatch burst open across the vessel. Through her visor, she could make out the woman who called herself Karsali storming across the deck, Malric and three other figures behind her.

The woman shouted something at the soldiers she had just talked to, but Kate didn’t hear what it was. She quickly slipped her way down after her teammates.

Whatever had the woman angry, it hopefully would keep them busy even longer, as far as she was concerned, anyhow.