A Villain at Sea: A Destiny Detour Short Story Starring Shrilynda

Part 4 of 7 - A Test

After the meeting with the ineffectual pirate captain, Esmona led Shrilynda to a crumbling, creature-infested section of Bayselle Castle. Shrilynda assumed she was deep in Bayselle after speaking to the captain, anyway. She didn't distinctly remember traveling to this spot, but it would hardly have made sense the other way around.

"This place is disgusting," Shrilynda noted as soon as she was sure the scuttling vermin were present and not merely shifting dark spots in the corners of her vision that disappeared when she turned.

"Landlocked cabin urchins have the tendency to run away as soon as they learn they will be cleaning rat droppings from a crumbling castle instead of swabbing vomit off the deck of a pirate ship," Esmona explained. "A clean base of operations wreaked havoc on recruitment."

"I can't recommend containment curses enough," Shrilynda said, "and the perks of a remote location."

"Watch your step," warned Esmona out of habit rather than concern. The jagged cracks in the floor were alarming.

"You must have waged quite the battle here," Shrilynda noted, not because she wanted to have a conversation, but because she was accustomed to talking to herself.

"Kings are stubborn," Esmona said with a smirk.

She seemed like the type who would have little trouble bending the mind of a king. Or stabbing one in the stomach, for that matter.

Shrilynda side-stepped rubble, emerging into a room that had been blasted open entirely. A gull squawked at them angrily for the interruption before winging his way to a precariously balanced turret above.

"We're headed there." Esmona pointed to a space above the room across from them. "The Sorceress-thieves found a hidden stash of objects before their sudden exit." She spread out her be-ringed fingers, pantomiming a splash.

If the state of the room below was any indication, this search through broken cabinets and crumbling walls would not be pleasant.

"Did you look through what's there?" Shrilynda asked.

"Somewhat," Esmona replied. "There were no gold, weapons, or liquor, so interest was low."

"Good," Shrilynda murmured. "With any luck, the idiots didn't manage to destroy what I hope to find."

"Which is?" Esmona asked.

"Not necessary for you to know," Shrilynda answered coolly.

"But perhaps I would be more useful if I did," Esmona countered. She was persistent.

"Perhaps," Shrilynda admitted. She was going to need to decide what to do with Esmona. "See you there."

She snapped her fingers, and a cloud of black smoke later, she was standing across from Esmona on the other side of the divide. Use of her personal magic was only nominally reckless near the site of other magical objects. If Rin was smart enough to track magic—already questionable—she would have to weigh the risk of coming through the pirates to find nothing more than them setting off the king's magical contraband like the fools they were. Of course, if Shrilynda had been dealing with Daniella, she would have walked.

Across the divide, Esmona pointed a single, unimpressed finger upward, and Shrilynda looked up to see a draping metal ladder leading to a hole in the ceiling. She considered magically transporting herself again, but she had no desire to appear in the middle of one of the aforementioned piles of rat droppings. She would have to climb. Her limbs and muscles felt nearly foreign after a decade of disuse, but the blood spells that kept her alive also gave her enough strength to compensate for limbs and fingers that occasionally felt like they were part of someone else's body. The dangling chains she grasped felt oddly cold, and the sensation sent shivers up her arms.