79. Crime and Evading Punishment

Chapter 079
Crime and Evading Punishment

Although Aranhal widely advertised their new airship to their own populace and neighboring countries, actually seeing the Pearl of Aranhal took a bit of effort. It was located next to an important industrial town, but wasn’t actually in it. Instead, the construction site was placed outside the settlement itself, close enough to be supplied with relative ease but far enough to foil casual visitors.

The airship was currently grounded in an oval-shaped holding structure and surrounded by extensive scaffolding. Ringing it was a collection of storehouses, barracks, watchtowers and temporary housing for workers and overseers. Finally, the entire work camp was surrounded by a warded, alteration-made stone wall that stopped minor magical creatures or petty criminals from simply waltzing into the place. Neither this, nor any of the other, more subtle defenses could stop Zach and Zorian from infiltrating the place without being seen, of course. They were currently standing on one of the observation platforms attached to the ship, observing it.

Zorian had to say, the Pearl of Aranhal was a beautiful construct. Airships were often depicted as floating sea-going ships – an image that stemmed from the earliest known models, which really were simply modified sea-going ships. Ancient airship creators were working with a lower technological base and less developed economic infrastructure, forcing them to pick an already constructed vessel as a base for their project. Most modern airships, on the other hand, were built from the ground up as dedicated aerial vessels, so they rarely looked anything like a mundane ship. They tended to either have long cylindrical hulls covered in stabilizing fins or be some manner of a triangle. The Pearl of Aranhal bucked the trend there, in that it had a relatively flat, rhombus-like shape. It kind of gave Zorian an impression of a giant leaf. It certainly looked like it should be fast and maneuverable, but it made Zorian somewhat skeptical of the claim it was especially robust and durable by airship standards. Well, no matter. They wanted the ship because of its speed and flight endurance, not combat ability.

In any case, the airship’s name seemed particularly fitting in light of its current coloration. Its hull was painted in dazzling, pure white, with no overt markings or identifying patterns. This was meant to be only temporary, however. Aranhal intended to decorate the ship further before unveiling it to the waiting public, but they had yet to settle down on what kind of color scheme and decorations to put there. The question seemed quite trivial to Zorian, but was apparently an intensely divisive political question that caused many bitter arguments in Aranhal’s halls of power. The current overseer was continually kicking the can down the road in regards to the issue, fearful that whoever lost the dispute would try to cut the project’s budget out of spite.

“What do you say?” Zach suddenly said, rocking in place on his heels. He looked quite bored. “It’s about time, no?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Zorian answered. He was a bit nervous, he realized, so he may have been stalling a little. “I’ll go tell my copies to set the monkeys loose.”

He reached to his simulacrums through his soul, his ability to use his soul as a telepathic conduit as natural as breathing by now, and gave them a simple ‘go’ signal. They already knew what to do.

Golden triclopses were monkey-like magic creatures native to the area. They had bright yellow fur, two small horns on top of their heads and an extra eye in the middle of their forehead. Their third eyes gave them the ability to perceive magic in some strange, hard to understand way, which made them quite interested in magic items. Of course, being only as smart as regular animals and somewhat aggressive, their interest tended to be unhealthy for the magic items in question and the humans that owned them. Zach and Zorian had captured several groups of these beasts earlier to set loose as a distraction. They were particularly good for this because the construction team had already had a number of smaller clashes with the local triclops communities, and thus having a bunch of them making trouble in the base wasn’t immediately suspicious. They had tried this already in the three previous restarts to test the waters, and they knew that the guards would first move to contain the situation before wondering if someone had sent this unusually large group of them here intentionally.

By then, of course, it would be too late.

After the golden triclopses were set loose upon the unsuspecting base, Zach and Zorian remained in their current spot for a while, waiting. It would take a while before the creatures were discovered, the severity of the problem became obvious, and before the majority of the base’s guards were mobilized to deal with them. Zorian monitored the situation through his simulacrums, whose senses he could tap into with ease. His studies of the cephalic rat swarms and the god-touched hydra living in the portable palace orb had done much to improve his ability to coordinate with his simulacrums. They weren’t quite a single mind yet, but he probably didn’t want that to begin with.

Zach also had simulacrums present in the base. He had only managed to get them working recently, so they tended to have far more quirks and differences from the original than Zorian’s own did. However, they needed those simulacrums if they wanted to steal the ship and it was pretty unlikely any of them would go insane and try to kill them, so whatever.

“There,” Zorian eventually said. “Everyone who was going to get pulled to deal with the monkeys is gone. It’s now or never.”

“Finally,” Zach said.

He didn’t say anything else, instead opting to jump down from the platform. Zorian followed after him with a sigh, giving the simulacrums the signal to drop whatever they were doing and converge on the ship. Even Zach’s simulacrums, since his fellow time traveler seemed to have forgotten about his copies in his hurry to get to the action. Or maybe he just expected Zorian to take care of that for him – it was actually easier for Zorian to coordinate Zach’s simulacrums than it was for Zach himself, due to his lack of easy telepathy. Though, since Zach and his simulacrums were largely identical in mind, it should be quite possible for him to use telepathy to communicate with his copies with ease, even if he wasn’t a natural mind mage like Zorian. He made a mental note to talk to Zach about that later…

Zach, Zorian and their simulacrums surged forward, pushing past the shocked technicians and civilian staff and disabling any armed resistance they encountered. Zach and his simulacrums broke down the scaffolding and the anchor beams that were holding the airship locked down while Zorian and his simulacrums went about installing the missing airship components and ejecting anyone that remained inside the ship.

It went… surprisingly well. Zorian was a little worried, since they were making this attempt only a few days into the restart and the preparations had been made in a considerable rush. He’d had to take a potion of vigilance and miss a night of sleep entirely in order to finish constructing everything in time, so he was technically doing this while staying awake for more than 24 hours.

They only had two significant complications. One was that some of the soldiers inside the ship had barricaded themselves inside a storage room and placed high-level mental wards on themselves after they figured out how Zorian was overrunning the crew so easily. Since Zach and Zorian couldn’t use anything too destructive for fear of damaging the ship, this made the resulting situation a bit of a chore to resolve in a timely manner. Thankfully, the golem bodies of Zorian’s simulacrums were capable of taking considerable abuse, so Zorian simply sent them in to swarm the soldiers with no regards to countering attacks. The result were two simulacrums with seriously damaged torsos and one that was missing both of his legs, but the problem was solved and the damaged simulacrums could still crew the ship just fine… though the legless one kept whining to Zorian about his predicament.

The other was that once every simulacrum and missing part was in its place and they tried to take off, the airship wouldn’t budge. It turned out that someone had installed an additional safeguard that none of the people Zorian had interrogated had been aware of, and Zorian was forced to frantically search for it while Zach repelled constant assaults on the ship from the reorganized Aranhali soldiers outside. Thankfully, Zorian eventually found the section the safeguard was in. Unfortunately, it was inside an engine regulation section, and integrated into it too deeply and too subtly for Zorian to remove it cleanly in the time they had left. Aranhali battlemages were no doubt going to start teleporting in any time soon, and then they’d be forced to abort the attempt. Thus, Zorian just torched the entire mechanism, allowing them to take off but permanently crippling some of the ship’s engines.

Now the airship was in the air, rapidly distancing itself from the construction site as it flew in the direction of the Xlotic interior. However, it was considerably slower than it should have been and there was another Aranhali airship chasing after them in pursuit. Zorian had no idea how that airship had gotten on the scene so quickly. Maybe it had just happened to be in the area when they made their attempt?

In any case, the two of them were currently in the main control room, trying to figure things out. While they had done their homework before coming here and had a rough idea of what operating the Pearl of Aranhal involved, it was one thing to have a theoretical knowledge of how something worked and quite another to actually put it into practice.

“You know, this thing is harder and less exciting to pilot than I thought it would be,” Zach said idly, poking and prodding the various levers and buttons on the control panel in front of him.

“I do know,” Zorian told him, a little grumpily. He was rapidly becoming aware of why Aranhali plans called for a dedicated navigator that would focus fully on charting a ship’s course. He was so fobbing off this job to a simulacrum the next time they did this… “Just focus on keeping the flight engines running and be glad you’re not in charge of navigation like I am.”

“I’m not so sure your job is that much harder than mine, considering you wrecked half the ship in order to get us in the air,” Zach remarked.

“It wasn’t half of the ship!” Zorian protested.

Zach laughed at him.

“So easy to rile up,” Zach said mirthfully. “Anyway, whoever designed this stuff should have really been pulled aside and told to cut down a little on the mysterious dials and counters. He should have put in some kind of magic panel or an illusion projector that would give you information in a more understandable form. Would that really be so hard?”

“I think you have a skewed image of how easy that kind of thing is,” Zorian remarked. “It’s neither cheap nor easy, and it would make it really inconvenient to fix things if something goes wrong. Dials and counters are simple to make and fix.”

“I guess,” Zach conceded. “It’s still annoying that we’re not even able to see the Aranhali airship pursuing us. One would think that an option to see a pursuing enemy would be one of the core features put into a control room. I should be able to say… I don’t know, something like ‘on screen!’, and have an image of the enemy projected on these windows in front of us.”

He gestured towards the large, clear windows that offered a breathtaking view of the outside world. Currently they could see nothing except the clear sky and the distant horizon, which sounded a little useless but at least it assured them they were flying straight, weren’t going to ram into anything and that the weather was pleasant enough to fly in. Pretty much what these windows were intended for, Zorian was sure.

“That would be kind of useful, actually,” Zorian agreed. “And while the airship itself isn’t nearly so convenient…”

He quickly performed three different divination spells, created a large illusionary screen in the air in front of them and then cast the final spell to integrate all of these into a semi-unified whole.

The illusionary screen rippled with prismatic colors for a second before settling into a three part screen. Two of them showed a scried image of the pursuing airship in different angles. The third one gave them a downward view from a vantage point high above the Pearl of Aranhal, allowing them to easily grasp the position of the enemy airship in relation to themselves.

“Nice,” Zach praised.

The other Aranhal airship was larger and more heavily-built than them. It had a more typical cylinder shape, and had a handful of cannons sticking out of its hull. The Pearl of Aranhal, on the other hand, was entirely unarmed. Even if they did have cannons of their own, they couldn’t use them, as they lacked the qualified gunners to make use of them.

Zorian wasn’t feeling very threatened, though. Despite the damage to its flight engines, the Pearl of Aranhal was still slightly faster than the other airship. The design was really proving its worth there. Gradually, minute after minute, hour after hour, they were pulling away from the other airship. Additionally, Zorian had diverted one of his simulacrums to see if something could be done about the damage he had done to the ship’s flight engines, and it seemed the answer was yes. In another two hours or so, their speed would shoot up and their pursuers would be left in the dust.

“Uh, not sure if you noticed it yet, but there is another airship in front of us,” Zach said, pointing at a distant dot that had yet to enter into the range of their scrying screen but could be seen through the mundane window of the control room. “Do you think they’re here by coincidence or…?”

Crap.

Some frantic divinations quickly revealed that the third airship was most certainly not there on accident. It was moving to intercept them, and both it and their old pursuer were making minor course adjustments in order to box them in better, apparently coordinating their moves. The strange thing was that the new airship wasn’t even owned by Aranhal – it belonged to the neighboring country of Mezner. The two countries didn’t exactly have the best relations with one another, so Zorian couldn’t help but privately wonder what Aranhal had promised to the other side in order to get them to help out. A lot, probably.

They really, really didn’t want to lose the Pearl of Aranhal, it seemed.

– break –

Previously, when Zach and Zorian were securing the Pearl of Aranhal and fleeing the scene with their ill-gotten gains, they had been trying to treat their enemies with as much mercy as possible. The Aranhal soldiers posted on the construction site were perfectly justified in being outraged at them, after all, so the two time travelers tried to disable their enemies non-lethally. To Zorian’s knowledge, nobody had actually died during the theft itself, though some people did get seriously injured and the golden triclopses might have killed someone after they had left. They even left the pursuing airship be, preferring to flee rather than destroying them, as they very well could have.

However, having been caught between two airships like this meant they could no longer afford to treat the situation with such velvet gloves.

Stolen story; please report.

Guided by Zach’s and Zorian’s hands, the Pearl of Aranhal promptly turned around to confront the Aranhali airship that had been pursuing them. If they had to fight, it was better to tackle their enemies one by one than wait for them to catch up to them together.

The Aranhali airship did not fear a confrontation. It knew that the Pearl of Aranhal was unarmed, and that Zach and Zorian were running it on a skeleton crew. Thus, it simply continued onward towards them, silently accepting the challenge.

It did not fire its cannons at them, though. Instead, six holes opened up in its hull and released a dozen or so giant eagle riders towards them. The eagles were overloaded with passengers, visibly straining under the weight of men they had to carry, but they flew fast nonetheless.

Simulacrum number two stood on the outer hull of the Pearl of Aranhal, studying the scene dispassionately. His legs were glued onto the surface of the airship to keep the wind from sweeping him away, and his golem body was unbothered by the cold. After sweeping through the incoming enemy forces once, he sent his memory over to the original for study and then put them out of his mind. They weren’t his problem. There were other simulacrums in charge of dealing with defense. His job was a bit more… proactive.

He flexed his hands and shook a little, just to make sure the previous battles hadn’t left some hidden injuries on him. The golem bodies that the original had made for them had been perfected to such a degree by now that they felt completely indistinguishable from their original form. However, the advantages of the golem bodies came with a hefty downside – if they were ever damaged, it was very hard to repair them, requiring a lengthy and expensive process. Poor simulacrum number four was still legless, for instance, though number two agreed with the original that his whining got really old after a while. If a normal simulacrum had had both of his legs blown off, he would have dispersed from the strain. The guy should be grateful he even still existed, not complaining about missing limbs.

His little checkup done, he calmed his mind and focused on the task at hand: counter-attacking the Aranhal airship.

They thought themselves safe because they thought their opponents had no weapons. But they were so very wrong…

Simulacrum number two teleported to the enemy ship. Teleporting from one moving target to another was tricky thing to pull off, and was beyond most teleporters… but it was entirely doable for Zorian, and therefore for his simulacrums as well. He couldn’t teleport directly into the enemy airship, but he didn’t have to – he teleported on top of the enemy airship’s hull, disintegrated a few panels to create an opening for himself and then stepped inside.

He didn’t even try to hide himself as he advanced through the corridors towards the airship’s flight engines. He didn’t have the time, and he had probably been discovered the moment he made a hole in the hull, anyway.

Three armed crewmembers quickly found him.

“Halt! Stand d-”

He was ready for them. A severing whip cut them to pieces before they could so much as fire a shot. He didn’t even slow down. He simply sped up, his divination spells having successfully mapped the interior, showing him where to go to reach his destination.

The severing whip trailed after him, attached to his arm, and when he came upon another group of people he used it to cut them down as well. It was a very efficient spell – the whip, once created, was pretty cheap to maintain – but one that was rarely used due to its short range and the possibility of the caster slicing their own limbs off if they didn’t have complete control over it. A bit brutal, admittedly, but the culmination of his task here involved crashing the entire airship – most of these people would end up dead in the end, no matter how you sliced it.

A hail of bullets impacted his chest but he simply ignored it, not even bothering to shield against them. His golem body was tough, able to shrug off minor attacks like those with ease. Spending mana to defend against things like that would be a waste.