“Julie I understand that we’re in a scary place right now, but Daddy can’t focus if you scream so much.”
I give voice to my grievances while I try to calm down the shrieking toddler strapped to my back. I’m having a little trouble calming her down though. I can only use my voice to calm Julie down since I’m holding onto the railings of a large metal box that’s traveling at insane speeds high up in the mountains for dear life.
Things just haven’t been going my way recently. I was going to take a break from my usual line of work while I raise my child with my lovely wife, but she passed away while giving birth. To make matters worse, Julie, my adorable daughter, doesn’t have an ounce of magic in her. Then, this one really pisses me off, those maniacs over in Eshos started to research super weapons in secret! Fucking super weapons!
Anyone with an IQ higher than a sleep deprived coffee table could figure out what they plan to do with them. Fight against the Empire of Othium, lose spectacularly, break the fragile peace that blankets the world.
The Empire, or any other world power for that matter, has no idea what Eshos is doing. Eshos is good at keeping secrets. I only caught wind of this because I overheard a conversation about it between two Eshos officials.
They were speaking in code, even they aren’t stupid enough to just talk about their plots out in the open like that, but they used an old code that I knew very well. If they were smart, they wouldn’t have talked about it in a god damn marketplace where parents and other caretakers buy food at a discounted price.
I heard their conversation and I new I had to do something. I wasn’t going to raise my daughter in a hellscape of war, so I tailed them. I should have contacted someone and told them what was going down, but my wife was the one who new all the message spells and I haven’t had time to learn them. But what I really regret is taking Julie with me.
I should have just left her at an orphanage for the day or something. This really isn’t the place for her. She could get hurt and if she were to die then I would probably kill everyone around me and then myself. And worst of all she won’t stop SCREAMING IN MY EAR.
If I left her at the orphanage, then she could make some friends and at the end of the day I could just pick her up. No ear screaming, no problem. But noooooo, I was in too much of a hurry to be a responsible father and instead took my daughter on an incredibly dangerous sabotage run where the threat of death is everywhere. Well, hindsight and all that.
At least she put her jacket on when we left to go to the market. It may be cheap but it keeps her warm. Although I wish she brought her hood, the wind keeps blowing her ponytail in my face.
I always think this, but her almost pink hair reminds me of her mother. Julie looks a lot like her mother too, she even has her eyes ... I’m getting sidetracked. I need to get inside this ‘train’ thing and stop it.
The two officials had talked about this train in marvel. About how it could transport large amounts of people and resources in a fraction of the time as a carriage. They spoke a little about how it worked, apparently at the front of the train was something called a ‘locomotive’ and that it would pull everything that was hooked onto it along the rails.
I pull myself and Julie over the rails and climb on top of the train, the blistering winds almost throw me and Julie off once or twice. Julie still hasn’t stopped screaming. She’s got quite the pair of lungs for a three foot tall child.
“Julie we’re about to go inside now, when we’re inside the train I need you to be quiet. Okay?”
Now that my hands are free I talk to Julie and do my best to comfort her, she nods in understanding to my request for her to shut up. Even if she didn’t have any magic in her, she was still really smart for someone her age. Must be my genius rubbing off on her.
While laying on top of the train, I hold out my two fingers, keeping them together. Julie, who’s still strapped to my back, watches my fingers with her shiny grey eyes. This is her favorite part.
I focus my magic at my fingertips and a searing hot flame only four inches tall erupts out of them. As my fingers trace a circle on the roof of the train, the metal melts and the circle falls into the train with a loud clang.
I hope no one heard that.
After cutting a hole into the roof of the train car Julie and I climb in.The first thing I notice is that it's incredibly dark in here. The second thing I notice is that someone turns the lights on and starts slow clapping.
“Oh Terry it's so good to see you.” An old wrinkly man dressed in robes with a mustache and monocle laughs in delight while three Eshos guards move to surround me. Crap. While some Eshos guards aren’t anything to write home about, the old man being here is a bad sign.
The guards are wearing steel chain mail and they all have their swords drawn. I can tell that they’re preparing spells for when things inevitably get wild. Two of the guards are standing between me and the old man and the third is standing behind me, a little confused as to why a child is here.
The old man seems to have expected me. Rather, I’m seriously surprised that he’s here. He’s one of the strongest mages in Eshos. Grandald the Wise. Well, his title is Grandald the Wise but people generally call him Grandald the walking disaster.
His specialty it wide-range, highly damaging magic. He should be excavating quarries or dying of old age, not doing top secret missions.
“How did you know I was here?” I glance around at the guards and at Grandald, waiting to see if they intend on humoring my questions so I can think of a plan.
“I’m so glad you asked. We know you’ve been poking your nose where it doesn’t belong and someone wanted you gone.” Grandald flexes his fingers as they start to glow, I don’t think this is working.
“Yeah but how did you know I was HERE. On this specific train, in this specific car?” There's a box that's open enough to fit a small child inside next to me, I should put Julie in there before things get hectic.
“We set you up. Do you really think our officers are stupid enough to not know what Terry the Unseen looks like? As for your second question, that brat on your back screams in volumes that rival a dragon's roar.”
“Okay you can insult me all you want but don’t even start trying to insult my daughter. Also since we’re on the subject of Julie, do you mind if I just quickly put her in this box before we start killing each other so she doesn’t get hurt?” As I say that I start to slowly take Julie off my back to put her in the box.
“Erm, I don’t mind. But why is someone of her age even here? You have a history of being scatterbrained, but bringing your daughter to a place like this is something not even I expected.”
“What can I say, It’s difficult being a single father.” While Grandald and the guards wonder why my adorable daughter is here, I put Julie into the box and make sure she’s nice and secure.
“Don’t move Julie, Daddy has to work.” As soon as those words leave my lips I cycle my magic around my body and clothing, and I turn invisible. Immediately after I do that a sword from the guard who was positioned behind me rockets forward at insane speeds. Speeds that shouldn't be possible for mere Eshos guards.
While I manage to jump backwards and bounce off the wall of the car to get behind the guard, I didn't get away unscathed. The sword cut into my left arm. Wasting no time I aim my fingers at Grandald and move mana to them. An invisible arrow of flame shoots out from the tips of my fingers. Before it can reach Grandald, the arrow halts mid-air.
“Did you really think I wouldn’t have prepared countermeasures to your favorite tricks Terry?”
Grandald reaches out his hand and I see a distorted wave shoot out from it. My invisible flame bullet, the magic barrier that caught it, and my invisibility spell all waiver and fizzle out. As if waiting for that, two of the guards launch towards me.
I don’t have time to respond to Grandald’s taunt as I leap in between the guards and start cycling my mana again. Because the guards didn’t expect me to advance, they shoot past as they try to swing their swords, unable to do so without hitting each other. The swords of the guards bounce off of their chain mail armor, pushing them into the walls of the car. It seems they were able to stop cycling their mana into the blades before they killed themselves. Damn shame.
Great elites you got there Grandald, they must be fresh out of combat training.
Now that I’ve got my mana moving again, I go invisible and put all my fingers together. Much like what I did to get into the car, I cycle mana into my fingers and a large searing invisible flame erupts forth. I run my fingers into the ground of the car melting the floor almost immediately.
Luckily they used lead for the cars, otherwise this wouldn’t work.
I quickly start running my hand around the floor ceiling and walls of the car burning and melting the wood and metal, attempting to split it in half and quickly deal with the guards, who are all positioned behind the box I put Julie in.
“You can’t go invisible forever Terry.” Grandald moves back towards the front of the car and shoots out that distortion wave again. As it leaves his hand, I abandon my current plan. I pull out a knife I had on my leg and launch myself at Grandald. When I make contact with the distortion wave and my magic comes to a grinding halt, I’m already within stabbing range.
I wanted to finish cutting the car in half, but if I have an opportunity to get rid of Grandald before he does something crazy then that’s a win in my book.
My knife’s aim is true as it gouges deep into Grandald’s chest. While he recoiled from the pain, he manages to grab my arm which still has yet to let go of the knife. He cycles mana into my arm, which begin to freeze rapidly.
“Now you worthless guards! Kill him now!” Because Grandald is still disrupting my mana, I knee him in the gut and he lets go of my arm. I leap sideways into the wall and narrowly dodge a sword aimed for my back. The guard doesn’t let me go so easily, as he pursues. I quickly duck and a deep gash is carved into the wall where my head used to be.
The guard that's currently imposingly standing over me raises his sword to bring it down and end my life. But before he finishes the start up of his swing, I leap up and hold his sword in place above his head with my left hand while my right hand is already burning its way through his throat.
In my haste I left my knife in Grandald, so I used the flame cutter that I used on the train car. If it can melt lead, it can melt this dude’s throat. The other guards start advancing on me, so I throw the freshly made corpse at them after putting a little surprise on it’s back. They’re caught off guard and fumble with the body, they really must be fresh out of combat training.
While the greenhorns are preoccupied I look to take another stab at Grandald, who's crouching while nursing his wounds. Grandald didn’t have it in his heart to give my knife back to me, mostly because it was in his lung but that's beside the point. But as if to make it up to me, it looks like Grandald was too busy coughing up blood to prepare his next spell! Score!
I pounce on him with my flame cutter, ready to cut him to pieces. Alas, it seems that even though Grandald is old, his age hasn’t caught up to him yet. He quickly raises his hand and lighting pours out from his fingertips.
My body convulses as my muscles seize up and my mana cycling comes to a grinding halt. I land next to Grandald and roll past him due to my momentum from my earlier stab motivated leap. While Grandald keeps the pressure going with his lightning, He tells the guards to stop floundering and end my life.
“Hey you wastes of space, toss the body aside and kill hi-” But before he can finish his command, my surprise from earlier makes itself known. I’m actually quite proud of this one, I made it with the help of my daughter so pay attention.
We made a small magic circuit that would have a set amount of mana put into it. The circuit would create a fire and keep it contained within a sphere about the size of my fingernail. The fire would grow more and more intense. After a while, the mana would run out and the sphere would disappear and the fire would rapidly expand outwards, creating a small explosion! We wrote the circuit on small cards that we can fill with mana and stick onto things at a moments notice. Isn’t Julie amazing?
Of course this would be very visible and not good to use as a surprise, but I’m Terry the Unseen. I put my usual invisibility trick into this circuit. It obviously takes more mana to work, but it isn’t a problem for someone like me to get that circuit running for a few seconds.
The mana in the circuit runs out in the middle of Grandald’s sentence. With a loud burst the guards are engulfed in invisible fire and Grandald is knocked off his feet from the shock wave. As the invisibility spell on the fire fades and an orange glow fills the car, I reach over and pull my knife out of Grandald’s chest. Then I quickly return the knife into Grandald’s throat.
At this point most of the flammable objects in the car were on fire, which was most things.
...Including the box I puT JULIE IN OH MY GOD!
I ignore the guards screams and the gurgling noises coming from Grandald as I run towards the middle of the car and tear the top off of Julie’s box. Julie was curled up in the corner with her hands over her head, and not on fire. Thank god.
I scoop Julie up and run to the front of the car. I ram through the door and leap to the small standing area on the next car.
“Daddy. Daddy listen to me.” Ignoring Julie, who's tugging at my coat, I crouch down. With one hand, I use flame cutter to cut the connection between the two cars. The burning train car slows down and soon leaves our sight.
“Daddy! Daddy your coat is on fire!” Julie's practically shaking me now.
“Come on Julie, do you think Daddy wouldn't notice that his coat was on fir- Holy crap my coat’s on fire!” I look down at the bottom of my coat and see flames whipping around in the high winds. As it turns out, Julie was right. I put her down next to me and throw off my coat in haste. I raise my foot and stamp out the fire. The coat has a few burns on it’s bottom half, but it's still wearable.
“Are you okay Julie?” I start checking on Julie after I put my coat back on. “Are you burned? Was it too loud in there? You didn’t hit your head on anything right? Did one of those terrible guards kick your box and scare you? Did any of Grandald’s spells hurt you? Did-”
“I’m okay, but your arm…s” After eyeing Julie over a little longer to make sure she really was ‘okay’, I turn my attention to my physical state. I have an almost deep cut in my left arm, which was bleeding to a small extent, and my right forearm was just a little frozen.
My frozen arm would warm up and defrost in a while, so that was basically fine. I rip a length of cloth off my shirt and use it as a bandage for my left arm, so we’re good there. I’m basically in top physical condition if you think about it.
“Haaah, Julie I’m tired.” But my mental state isn’t as presentable. I used a lot of magic in that fight. I fall onto my back with a thud, then immediately recoil from banging my head on a metal floor. “Ow. Can we have a five minute break?”
“Why are you asking me, your the adult.” Julie plops down and looks at me with a complicated expression.
“Then as the adult I say we take a five minute break. My arm should thaw by then.” As I lay there waiting for my arm to warm up, Julie takes a small notebook out of her small backpack, which I didn’t know she had brought with her, and starts to write in it.
“Julie didn’t I tell you to leave the bag at home?” When we left to go to the marketplace, I remember telling Julie to leave that bag at home because whenever she takes that bag places, something bad always happens. Julie keeps getting these ideas for magic circuits and she writes them down in the book to try them out later, but sometimes she hides energy crystals in the bag. So when she gets an idea that she can’t wait to try out, she runs to a hiding place, draws the magic circuit, powers it, and inevitably blows something up.
“Yo- You can see this?”
Rather, I remember her putting the bag in her room, and she didn’t come out of her room with it, so how is the bag here? It couldn’t have been invisible, I haven’t taught Julie that trick yet, unless…
“Julie, my cute daughter, did you by any chance happen to, oh I don’t know, take one of those magic circuits off my desk when I specifically told you not to because they were dangerous? And did you also happen to integrate that magic circuit into your bag to take it places after I tell you not to? While it certainly looks like it from circumstantial evidence, my daughter wouldn’t do something like that right?”
“I uh- I don’t know what magic circuit you're talking about. There are uh, so many you know. And I don’t think I would take and use a dangerous one.” Julie’s eyes dart around as she fumbles to put her book back in her bag and switch out the energy crystal with a fresh one. With a fresh energy crystal, the bag disappears. “Plus I don't even know what bag your talking about. We have so many at home.”
“Then what about the bag that’s behind you and invisible? And appears to be using a magic circuit very similar to the one that I frequently integrate into magic circuits I use for work?” Julie's sweating buckets trying to come up with an excuse. As she's about to open her mouth to lie to me again, I hear shouting and footsteps from inside the car.
“Oh look, something else! Let's focus on that!” Julie scoops up her invisible bag and flings it on her back as she stands up.
“Fine, we’ll talk about this later, but you are so grounded little miss. Move out of the way of the door.” Julie stops talking and moves the side. I stand up and get on the other side of the door. As the shouting gets closer, I can sort of make out what they're saying. It's all yelling about a loud bang from the back end of the train, I wonder who caused that? They must be terrible at covert missions.
The door bursts open and an Eshos guard runs out of it, only to fall off the back of the train. Good job there buddy.
“What the hell happened!? What happened to the train car!? Where's Grandald!?” Another guard leans out of the door, then turns his head and sees Julie. “Why is a brat he-” Before he finishes his thought, I grab him by the neck and throw him off the train. I look into the car and see that it's devoid of people.
“Julie follow close behind me. Do not go past me. If you see anyone I want you to hide.” I glance at Julie with a look that says I will not accept any argument and crouch through the doorway. Still crouching I move to the storage boxes that are all over the place and look through them. It's all supplies, no super weapon plans or anything. While there are other cars, this was a setup. It's possible that there are no super weapons on this train.
“Nothing of interest here, we’re moving to the next car.” This goes on for a while. We enter a new car and kill the guys inside. I look through the boxes for the super weapons while Julie sits in the corner where I know she won’t hurt herself or find something crazy. The last thing I need is Julie finding a schematic to a super weapon and making them at home. After we find nothing, we move to the next one.
“Daddy I think you should take a break. You’re sweating a lot and you look really tired.” I was indeed tired. There are more cars to this train then I was expecting, and fighting guards every five minutes is extremely tiring, even if they’re not the best in the world. To make things worse, I’m fresh out of magical energy. I literally cannot even activate a basic light spell right now.
“Your right, we should take a break. We’re a long way from Eshos so we have a while until the train stops anyways. Just to be safe, lets move the boxes in front of the door so no one we don’t know comes in. Remember Julie, strangers are dangerous. If any strangers ask you to do any favors, run away as fast as you can.” Look at me being a good father. I’m teaching my daughter not to trust strangers. Every moment could be an educational moment as they say. We move all the boxes in front of the door and sit on the floor to rest.
Now would be a good time to finish that conversation from earlier. I need to make it clear to Julie that she can’t just take magic circuits from my desk and do whatever she wants with them. I also have to explain that she shouldn’t lie to me like that. I know she’s smart and good with magic circuits, but I don’t want her to get hurt.
“So Julie, why did you lie to me about taking the magic circuit from my desk? And why didn’t you listen to me when I told you to leave your bag at home?” Julie, who was writing in her book, flinches at my questions then looks at me.
“Well you lie all the time daddy, so I thought that it would be okay if-”
“Julie I lie because it's my job. Not because I want to. If you lie to people close to you then they’re going to feel hurt or betrayed. I told you not to take any magic circuits from my desk because they’re dangerous. You could hurt yourself. Yet you take them anyways and integrate them into your backpack. Then you lie about it to my face, saying that you did no such thing. Do you understand that I feel hurt and betrayed because you did that?’
“...I’m sorry Daddy.” Julie closes her book and looks to the ground. “I won’t do it again I promise.”
“That's the thing, because you lied I have no reason to believe that you’ll keep your promise. When we get home, I’m taking your backpack. And you won’t be allowed to make any magic circuits for a while.”
“...Okay.” Julie puts her book back into her bag. We sit in silence for a while after that.
“Anyways, We should get going. Those super weapons aren’t going to find themselves.” I get up and stretch while motioning to Julie to do the same. As I’m about to start moving the boxes out of the way, I hear a knock at the door.
“Um, who is it?” This was a little unexpected. I was almost sure me and Julie we’re the only ones on the train at this point. All the guards ran to us, and I dealt with those. I don’t think anyone else would be on this train at this point, so why is this guy here?
“I’m here looking for super weapons. Are there any in there?”
“Oh really, I’m looking for super weapons too! We haven’t found any yet, so I was hoping they would be further up the train. But if you haven’t found any then they must not be here.”
“Yeah that sounds about right. Anyways, if you aren't Eshos guys who are you?”
“I could ask you the same question sir. I wasn’t expecting anyone else on this train to be looking for superweapons.”
“I’m a Berserker of the Othium Empire, would you please open the door?” Shit. Aw shit. I’m so fucked. A fucking berserker. Why is he here? Do the gods hate me or something? Can anything go my way for once?
“Uh, I personally don't think that's a good idea at the moment Mr. Berserker sir. How about this. I move the boxes out of the way of the door, you wait for me to leave, then you can come in. How does that sound?” I look at Julie and motion to her to hide somewhere. She quickly gets the idea and hides in a box we left in the corner.
“If you leave, then how do I know that you won’t take the super weapon schematics with you? I think it would be best if I just break down the door.” I don't like that idea at all, but I don't think it was a suggestion. I run towards the back of the car and get my knife out. At least I would if I could find it.
Where the hell’s my knife?! I fucking need that right now! Right, I left it in Grandald. Asshole, couldn’t even give me my knife back. I should have taken one from one of the guards I killed. God I need to think ahead more.
I have almost no magical energy left, so I have to be conservative of how I use it. I have no knife or any other weapon. I’m kinda screwed. No wait, I still have one of those magic circuit cards! I don’t know if that will stop a berserker, but it's better than anything else I’ve got. The berserker bangs on the door. It doesn’t open, it just makes a large dent in the door.
“Gimme a sec, this is a heavy door.” I don’t think its the door that's heavy. I think it's all the crap Julie and I put in front of the door that's heavy.
Just then the door slams open and all that crap in front of the door flies all over the place. The Berserker slammed into the door with his shoulder, it looks like he got a little of a running start.
The first thing I noticed about the berserker was that he wasn’t wearing a shirt. The second thing I noticed was that he was fucking jacked. This dude could probably bench five of me. Other than his shirtlessness, he was wearing large hide pants tied down to his legs with bandages. He had a beard that made me feel inadequate as a man, and had a huge battle axe in his hands. The last thing I noticed was that I recognize this guy.
“Wait, Terry? Is that you? Dude it's been so long! I still have orders to kill you on sight from stealing those documents from ten years ago! It really is a small world.” As the berserker said that, he charged towards ready to swing his axe.
I duck to the side and manage to dodge his axe, but he uses the momentum of his swing to slam me with his shoulder. I’m launched a few feet back and hit the wall. I don’t even have time to grown in pain as he readies his axe for another swing. Doing what I did the last time I was in this situation, I use my hand to stop the momentum of his swing before it gets going while I move my right hand to put the magic circuit on him.
As I’m moving mana into the circuit, the berserker knees me in the stomach. He lets go of his axe and grabs me to continue his beatdown. While the crap is getting kicked out of me, I manage to put the circuit on his back, but there really isn’t that much mana in it. I don’t know how long it will be before it goes off, or how powerful it will be.
Not noticing the magic circuit, the berserker throws me to the ground and picks up his axe. He raises it over his head and swings it down. I roll to the side and hear a loud bang. The magic circuit went off. Using his momentary confusion, I get back as far as I can.
The berserker's axe has cut deep into the floor and his back is covered in fire, but you wouldn’t believe it based on his reaction. The fire isn’t doing anything!
Shit, this is really bad. What will I do if he finds Julie? Do K.O.S. orders in Othium extend to immediate family members? I can’t remember.
I try to think of a plan, but doing so only makes me realize how hopeless the situation really is. I have no weapons, no mana, I’m tired, and this guy could overpower a bear. My highest priority is to get Julie out of here, but how would I even get close to her box? Forget this, I’ll just wing it. I’m good at that.
At this point the berserker has gotten his axe out of the floor and is charging me again. This time he hasn’t fully committed to swinging with his axe, he’s expecting me to dodge left or right. I rush at him and he swings his axe horizontally in front of him out of reaction. Nobody expects a defenseless, weak, and tired man to run directly at someone with an axe! I duck and roll to the opposite side of his swing, going under the axe.
Because he’s still dealing with the follow through of his swing, that gives me enough time to run back to Julie’s box and grab it. As I move to push it to the door, I whisper to the box in a tone that shows that what I’m about to say isn’t up for debate.
“Julie, I’m going to push you to the door. When you get there, I need you to get out of the box and run. Don’t worry about me, I’ll meet up with you later. Just get out of here and don’t get hurt.” I push the box with all my might and parental strength at the berserker. He jumps out of the way and runs at me again. The box sails to the door and stops in front of it. Julie gets out of the box and starts running as fast as she can.
That's the last thing I see.
