Leon met with Penitent in a private room of his villa.  Leon expected him to be as stoic and rock solid as he usually was, but when he walked in, he found the Paladin staring out of one of the windows with a look of such deep melancholy on his face that Leon almost froze in shock.

But the moment passed and Leon got the Paladin’s attention.  The two gave quick greetings and got right down to business.

“Leon, we finally know where he’s going,” Penitent stated with little preamble, a look of such grave seriousness on his face that Leon neither asked who he was referring to, nor celebrated the information’s arrival.

“Where?”

“We tracked him through the south, where he was loaded onto a ship and taken out into the Gulf.  Based on who he was with and the ship that he took, we believe he’s heading for the Serpentine Isles…”

“You speak as if you know who he was taken by…”

“I’ve heard of the man who took him, the man who fought with me.  A pirate named Jormun.  Claims to be a survivor of one of the shattered islands of the Serpentine Isles and has used that reputation to gather many other disillusioned or expatriated Serpentine Islanders under his aegis.  We’ve gotten scattered reports and complaints that this guy has been raiding up and down the western and southern coasts of Aeterna for decades.  He’s powerful and bold, and the people he brought with him were hardly much inferior…”

Leon frowned as he listened to Penitent describe the attack on the dungeon from his perspective, and the focus he gave to the man who led the raid and the powers he commanded.  He was strong enough to go toe-to-toe with Penitent, arguably the strongest of the Paladins, so Leon paid as much attention as he could.  When Penitent was finished, Leon quickly called up what he knew of the Isles.

The Serpentine Isles were, at least on paper, tributaries of the Bull King, but before that, they had supplemented their meager wealth with piracy.  Their islands couldn’t sustain much human life, so they had to resort to other means of procuring what they needed.  Eventually, their raids became too much for the Bull Kingdom to bear with its usual defensive and isolationist foreign and military policies, so they put together a task force under Penitent and sent it out to deal with the pirates.

The campaign was a success, and the Jarls of the Serpentine Islands became Earls, vassalized under the Bull King.  They provided sailors and lumber as tribute to the Bull King since their islands were too poor to give gold and silver, but the recent instability caused by the King’s injury had left them with rapidly growing autonomy, and they hadn’t paid their due tributes in years.

A fleet had been sent out shortly before the civil war to try and reassert the Bull Kingdom’s dominance and to prevent the Islanders from returning to their ancient ways of piracy, but it had been more than a year since and Leon hadn’t heard anything about that fleet.  He couldn’t imagine anything good had happened to it if disappearance was the outcome.

But he didn’t for a moment think that King Julius was going to refrain from pursuing Octavius.  “When and how are we going after him?” Leon asked.  He wasn’t about to let the man who had Trajan murdered go free just because he’d been a bit depressed and in his own head for a few weeks.

The Paladin gave him a deep, incredibly somber sigh.  “You’ll be the only seventh-tier going after these pirates, Leon.”

Leon cocked his head in surprise, though not, perhaps, for the reason that the Paladin might’ve guessed.  “I… always assumed that was going to be the case,” he said.  Bronze and Brimstone were in the west dealing with nobles who hadn’t quite realized that they’d lost already, Penitent needed to remain here to protect the King, and Sapphire was likely never going to leave house arrest again unless it was for her execution.

“You would’ve been forgiven for assuming otherwise,” Penitent replied with a shallow smile of amusement.  “Leon, the subjugation of the Serpentine Isles is not… a thing I look back on fondly.  I destroyed three of their islands and left the others depopulated.  More than half a million people died during that campaign, and each one of their ghosts haunt me.  I am an old man, and I have started to weaken in my age.  I no longer have the strength to return there to face my demons, let alone fight against that pirate again.”

Leon nodded in empathy and understanding.  The Penitent Paladin had to be penitent about something, after all.  Leon certainly had his own regrets, though none of such scale and magnitude.  More than that, though, he was reminded of the crimes that Justin had accused his family of, and which Nestor had confirmed.  He hoped he would never grow too comfortable with such things.

He almost asked how the Paladin had destroyed those islands, but from how lifeless and beaten down the old man looked relaying this information, Leon refrained.  He didn’t need to know how to destroy islands just to kill some pirates and retrieve a Prince.

More important than any of that, however, was the Paladin admitting to his weakness.  His aura was just as vigorous and powerful as Leon would’ve expected from a man thought to be the Bull Kingdom’s strongest Paladin, but he knew that the strength of an aura and the actual strength and power that a mage could command weren’t necessarily all that related.  If the Paladin didn’t believe himself physically capable of pursuing Octavius, Leon wasn’t going to argue with him; he’d feel some sympathy, and then he’d move on.  Leon wasn’t going to let the Paladin’s inability to accompany him detract from his current goal.

But he also had to keep his expectations in check.  Maia would be accompanying him, he was sure about that, and he couldn’t let that go to his head.  As powerful as she was, the ice wraiths and the Gorgon had shown that she was hardly invincible.

Leon refocused on Penitent.  There would be a time and place for those thoughts and the setting of expectations later.

“The people there are not going to support your search,” Penitent continued.  “Those people he was with him are pirates.  Pirates notorious for their cruelty and… effectiveness, too, if what little information we can dredge up on them is accurate.  Why they’re interfering up here, I have no idea.  Perhaps they finally decided that we’re weak enough that their admittedly considerable power is enough to buy them revenge for the destruction of their islands.  We can hardly say, myself most of all, without questioning them.”

“As far as I’m concerned, their justifications don’t matter or change anything, I’ll still go and retrieve the Prince one way or another,” Leon confidently stated.

“Don’t be so quick to assume victory, young Raime,” Penitent whispered.  “They have three seventh-tier mages.  I am old and tired and starting to wane in strength, and they had more than enough power to practically take Octavius out from under my nose, and I could do little to stop them.  These people are skilled and ruthless, and they have the power to do essentially whatever they want outside of the Central Empires.  I would understand if you were to back out of this…”

Leon smiled.  He could still see in his mind’s eye as if it were right in front of him Trajan’s cold lifeless body lying on the ground of the warehouse in which he was murdered.  His anger at the Prince’s death wasn’t as white-hot as it was then, but it was enough that Leon didn’t think himself capable of turning away right now.  He’d bring Octavius back one way or another, and there was a not-so-small part of him that was dearly hoping Octavius would resist when Leon caught up to him, just so that vengeance and justice would be the same.  He couldn’t turn away from this now.  He couldn’t leave this unfinished.

Getting to the Prince would be the hardest part in Leon’s estimation.  There were three seventh-tier mages in his way, for sure, but Leon had Maia, and with his resumption of training with the Thunderbird and his education under Nestor, he could almost feel himself growing stronger every day.

“I appreciate the words of caution, Paladin,” Leon said, his tone genuine.  “I will take heed and act with caution.  But I will bring Octavius back here.  The Gods of yore themselves couldn’t stop me.”

Penitent nodded, clearly wanting to say something more about this, but thinking better of it.

Instead, Penitent quickly informed Leon of how the Bull Kingdom was going to respond: three fleets were going to be combined into a single task force to go to the Serpentine Isles and reassert the Bull King’s authority.  Leon’s specific job was to find Octavius, for which he would be working with one of the Fleet Legates who would also be dedicated to that task.

The Paladin also gave Leon some instructions on how to link up with that fleet.  Since the Gulf of Discord was, ironically given the name, quite peaceful, the fleets would come from there, leaving the fleets of the Endless Ocean intact enough to continue providing support to the Legions in the west.  Leon had two days before he and whoever he was going to bring with him would have to catch a transport south along the Naga River, which would take them to the task force.

Leon was suddenly grateful that he had his armor back, and he resolved to set aside all other work until he got it fully re-enchanted.  However, in the back of his mind, he was starting to think about the pirates that Penitent had told him about, and the powers they commanded.  Leon had a few ideas about how to deal with them, but he’d need to consult with Nestor before doing anything about them.

When all the information had been relayed, the Paladin departed, leaving Leon with his sincere wish that the younger man’s journey to the Serpentine Isles would fare much better than his had more than fifty years ago.  As he said this, he looked every bit the aged man who had served the Bull Kingdom for more than two hundred years that he was.  He was old, he was weak, he was filled with regrets, and he couldn’t do more for Leon.

---

Leon felt strange as he watched the capital disappear behind the ship.  Saying goodbye to Elise had almost become routine at this point, though it wasn’t a routine he enjoyed.  The two days since Penitent’s departure had been a whirlwind of passion from her, though she made it abundantly clear that she wasn’t happy he was leaving again, especially so soon.

What had surprised Leon, however, was being informed that Valeria was going to stay behind.  It hurt a bit to hear that, but he trusted her, and if he were to be honest with himself, he was kind of glad.  Things between them were still awkward, and it was clear enough to him that they still needed more time.  Hopefully, when he returned, they could finish working themselves out, but for now, he was glad that they could get away from each other for a while, even if he felt guilty about it.

He comforted himself by thinking about those who were coming with him.  Marcus and Alcander had been reluctant to leave just like that, but they’d signed on with Leon, and so it didn’t take long for Leon to get them ready to accompany him.  Alix, too, had come with, though she was far more excited about the prospect of seeing the mysterious Serpentine Isles she’d heard so much about.

Finally, Maia was with Leon, and so was Anzu.  He would never head out to sea without her, just as he doubted she’d ever let him leave alone, and the prospect of leaving his griffin behind was not one that he would ever consider.  Even if Anzu wouldn’t be able to fight on land, his abilities to fly would still be invaluable at sea.

He was grateful to all of them for following him in ways he didn’t think he could articulate properly.  He had some ideas on how to thank them for following through with their decisions to follow him, but for the time being, he resolved to use this time spent traveling to finish up some of his work.  He had a whole host of things to enchant, chief among them his armor.

Over the course of the several days that it took them to sail south along the Naga, Leon remained cooped up in his cabin on the transport carefully inscribing the proper runes on silver bands that he’d had installed on the inside of his armor.  He knew he could do better than use the designs he had, but he’d quite run out of time to innovate.  Fortunately, all it would take to remove most of those enchantments would be to take out those silver bands and install new ones, so whenever he was ready, he could give his armor an upgrade.

The enhancements to his speed and strength were nice, but the power boosts to his fire and lightning attacks were what he was truly proud of.  He regretted that he hadn’t yet had the time to do something related to air or water, especially since he was heading out to sea, but the journey west toward the Serpentine Isles was going to be long, so there was at least that.

In the latter case, though, Leon spent the last few hours of the journey back south throwing together mock-ups of a couple things he’d been thinking about since his talk with Penitent.  His designs weren’t much, fitting onto a pair of standard sheets of spell paper, but they were still quite complex and advanced by Leon’s standards.  Once his armor had been re-enchanted back to its pre-civil-war state and his designs were complete, Leon dove into his soul realm.

Xaphan was continuing to meditate, reminding Leon that he could very well create something to help the demon regain his power, but for now, Leon headed straight over to the table on which rested Nestor’s ruby.

“Dead man,” Leon said, “I have some things that need looking at.  How feasible would you say these designs are?”

“My, how brusque, not even a ‘Hello!’ or ‘How do you do!’.”

“I’m on a time crunch, and quite frankly, I don’t think you deserve much of my politeness.”

“Fair enough.”  Leon felt Nestor’s weak magic senses emanate from the ruby and sweep over the spell papers he’d laid on the table.  “Hmm, this looks like a design for moving underwater, and this…  Ahhh, that makes sense, I was wondering if this would occur to you after you took those books.”

Leon hated Nestor, but he couldn’t help but smile in pride at the man’s pleasantly surprised tone.  He’d taken some of the books that were being maintained by the archive golems relating to the countering of certain magics.  The Penitent Paladin’s description of the power of the pirate leader had given Leon some pause—fighting such a powerful water mage at sea was bound to be a nightmare—but he felt like he had arrived at a reasonable solution.

“Are weapons with these enchantments common in the Nexus?” Leon asked.

“Relatively so.  I wouldn’t say that they’re widespread enough to be common, but I would also assume that every major player there has something in this vein…”

Leon stared down at the spell paper, upon which he’d inscribed a rather crude but, at least in his amateur opinion, effective weapon enchantment that could disrupt magical attacks.  If it worked as well as Leon envisioned, he could break the pirate’s hold over whatever water he hoped to use in his attacks.  Unfortunately, it was Leon’s first design, so he had little faith that it would work as intended.

Still, that Nestor recognized it at all was a good sign.  It ought to be useful to some degree, at least.

“In the upper right,” the old ghost said after a few seconds of examination, “the third amplification glyph is redundant.  You’ll receive so little benefit to cycling and amplifying your magic power more than twice that it’s not even worth bothering.  The magical bleed-off, especially in enchantments this unrefined, is too great.  See here on the fourth wing in the upper left?  Along the bilateral and trilateral glyphs, where your magic power is going to be slowed and diluted to flow along these much finer lines, you’ll lose most of that added amplification…”

Nestor proceeded to lay out several of the glaring flaws and inefficiencies in Leon’s design, and there were quite a few he could mention.  Even Leon was able to see some of them without Nestor’s input, but he hadn’t had the time to correct them before consulting with his long-dead kinsman.

He had to admit that Nestor was quite a teacher—or at least, his teaching methods perfectly meshed with what Leon wanted from a teacher.  Nestor simply pointed out flaws, he didn’t suggest improvements, leaving the actual creation and innovation to Leon.  Nothing would ever erase Nestor’s attempt to steal Leon’s body, but as a fellow, if amateur, enchanter, Leon couldn’t help but have some measure of respect grow for Nestor over the past few weeks.

He still hated the dead man, but his skills were real, and he seemed more than willing to share them.

“What of the water enchantments?” Leon asked, indicating the other enchantments he’d brought Nestor to inspect.

One of the books he’d taken to reading in the past couple of days was a journal of one of his Raime Ancestors named Themistocles, who was the founding father of the Bull Kingdom’s navy over a thousand years past.  The journal was more technical than personal, documenting his personal innovations regarding movement in water.  Most of the engines that powered the Bull Kingdom’s bigger ships were based at least partially on Themistocles’ work, though that work was far too finicky and complex for the smaller ships that comprised the bulk of the fleets’ ships, most of which still relied on wind power to sail.

Leon had taken those ideas and combined them with the work he’d already done on his flight suit, as well as with some of the knowledge he’d gained from Nestor to design underwater ‘booster jets’ for his boots.

“Hmm, not bad work, though kind of a flawed design.  Such propulsion methods are inefficient when placed on extremities.  This will work if properly applied and you took some time to learn them.  If.  But if I could be a little presumptuous, I would recommend something else, something that won’t horribly backfire on you or cost so much magic power that it won’t be worth it.”

“Oh?  You’ve done some research into these areas before?”

“One of the most common requests for enchanters is for locomotion; everyone always wants to get to where they’re going faster.  Most of this research is devoted to flight since few people live in the seas, relatively speaking, but many of the same principles apply.  Go speak with the Librarian, seek out Cleopatra’s Principles of Aerodynamics and Nestor the Fool Sage’s—not me, I assure you, one of our much more distant Ancestors, who I was actually named after—Fun Tricks and Games.  Honestly, how your ‘House Raime’ ever forgot its lineage is beyond me when they had these books in their archives…”

One of Leon’s eyebrows almost shot past his forehead and into his hair his skepticism was so strong.  Those hardly sounded like the kinds of books he needed if he wanted to move quickly in the water.  But he kept his doubts to himself; Nestor had, if nothing else, proven his knowledge of and seriousness about enchanting.  Leon didn’t think he’d try to have any fun at Nestor’s expense when it came to this topic.

Nestor could see Leon’s doubt written all over his face, though, and explained, “The former is much more technical, though as I said, it’s more of a flight manual.  Some of its principles for self-reliant flight without the aid of personal wind magic to keep you in the air is useful in the water, too, and besides, it’s basically required reading for anyone who wants to build a proper ‘flight suit’, as you call it.”

Leon could hear the scorn in Nestor’s voice, but he accepted it without argument.  He knew his flight suit was pretty poorly designed, even if it worked well enough.  Even without Nestor and the books from the archives, he was certain he could build something much better with more time to iterate on the design.

Nestor continued, “The latter was written by a rather unserious and despicably irreverent Ancestor of ours who, despite being a genius the likes of which our Clan rarely sees, seemed more prone to pulling pranks and playing games than seeing to any serious business that might’ve advanced our Clan in meaningful ways.  Still, even in those pranks which involved capsizing boats and pretending to drown, among many other… amusing things, you’ll find some valuable information.”

“You shouldn’t speak of this guy with so much scorn, he sounds delightful.  Anything he wrote ought to be more entertaining than reading a dry textbook or instructional manual, at least,” Leon whispered with a smile as he thought about this other Nestor.  It was good to know that not all of his Thunderbird Ancestors were like the Nestor he was now speaking with.

He started walking in the direction of the simple library that he’d built to house all of his new books.  It was far less majestic than the archives he’d taken them from, but as with so many things, he hadn’t the time to build something better looking.

In time, he hoped he might be able to change that, but for the next few days and weeks, his focus was on his enchantments.

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