Vol. 6 - Captivity - Chapter 34 (Patreon)

Together the three people and one wolf made their way through the tunnels of the pirates' lair until they arrived at the lagoon that Thomas had first seen on his arrival. Floating in the lagoon were several small boats that could be used to get out of the cave and onto the ocean where bigger ships would need to wait. The entrance to the cave was simply too small to allow anything large inside. Selena lead Thomas to the boat the three of them used to get into the pirate cave. Once all four of them were on board, Thomas spoke up, "Wait a second. I want to make life more difficult for them."

He looked at the many small boats floating on the water and smiled to himself. He raised his right hand and called forth his mana to do his bidding. In this case, his bidding was to turn into a giant stone above one of the boats and drop onto it. The giant stone smashed the ship to pieces turning it into nothing but flotsam. He repeated the process over and over until he'd smashed all of the small boats into scraps. It was a little petty but since he couldn't kill every last one of them repeatedly it was the best he could do at the moment.

With that taken care of, Thomas pulled his little boat motor out and attached it to the back of the boat. As he was working, Lexiana pointed at it and exclaimed, "Ah! That's the thing you used to get away from me!"

Thomas glanced at Lexiana and frowned, "Something you clearly didn't take to mean 'leave me alone and stop following me'."

Lexiana crossed her arms under her breasts and just huffed as she took a seat on the boat. Selena giggled behind one of her hands at their antics. Thomas glanced at Selena as she did, he had some questions for her once they got to safety. With the motor quickly installed he channeled mana into it and drove it out of the cave and into the sunlight. He sighed, closed his eyes, and basked in the warmth of the sun shining down on him. He'd been in that dungeon for two solid days and sneaking around in the dark for a while, it was good to be in the light once again. When he opened his eyes he spotted two ships floating on the water ahead of them.

The first ship was as large as a galleon and looked to have some damage. He suspected that it was one of the pirate ships. Seriously, how busy were they robbing people to have more than one ship? He didn't know exactly how many they had but it seemed likely to be more than two. Next to the galleon was a smaller ship that Thomas thought might be something like a sloop. Though it might be too big to be called a sloop. Seriously, ships weren't his thing so for all he knew it could have been anything. All that mattered was that it had a decent size and could easily accommodate about a dozen people and a fair amount of supplies.

He pointed at the smaller ship, "Just to confirm, that one is yours right?"

Selena and Lexiana both nodded in response. Thomas drove the small boat over to the ship and pulled alongside it next to a rope ladder. Selena was the first to climb up. Lexiana held her arms out toward Snowlily to help her up, but the white wolf ignored her and trotted over to Thomas. Lexiana pouted, "Oh, I see. Now that he's back you don't need my help anymore? Fine, but don't forget our deal!"

After finishing her piece, Lexiana started to climb up the ladder while Snowlily huffed. Thomas looked at the white ball of floof and asked, "Deal?"

Snowlily just looked at him for a moment before letting out a very human-sounding sigh. He would have to find out more about this deal once they got further away. He looked up at the ship where Selena and Lexiana were looking down at him. He smiled up at both women, "There's one more thing I would like to do before we leave."

While they looked at him questioningly, he turned the boat around and drove it closer to the empty galleon that belonged to the pirates. Once he was around twenty to thirty meters away, he stood up and took a breath. Mana started to gather in his hands slowly growing in density and power as he channeled more of his personal power into his spell. Invisible waves of magnetic force reached out to the galleon causing it to creak and groan in protest. Every piece of metal used on the ship from the nails holding it together to the pins inside of the pullies started to vibrate. The attractive power within his hands grew stronger as he guided it a small distance away from his body and closer to the ship.

The groaning became louder until the first nail popped out of somewhere and flew into the mass of power and floated there in the air. The metal pins running through the center of some pullies tried to move toward the attractive force causing the rigging on the ship to shake and dance violently. Soon more and more of the small pieces of metal holding the ship together started to rip themselves out of the wood and fly into the ball of Magnetic Magic floating in the air. As more metal collided together it increased the strength and reach of the magnetic pull as the metal became temporarily magnetized itself.

Soon larger pieces such as lamps started to come off of the walls and crash through windows to arrive at the growing pile of junk floating in front of Thomas. Thick metal braces used to support the sails were ripped directly off of the deck drastically weakening their support. Every single nail was pulled out of wherever they might be, even if they couldn't escape due to being inside of a cargo hold or some other place that prevented them from arriving at the mass of magnetic energy. The pins ripped out of the pullies in the rigging caused the rigging to fall apart and collapse into a mess. Thomas held the spell until his mana reserves dropped to a dangerously low level.

Once he stopped the spell all the floating metal material and junk fell into the ocean and quickly sank. The galleon in front of him was now basically just held together with glue. He grinned in approval of his work. The ship looked to be in bad shape due to the destruction of the pullies and the fallen rigging but other than that it seemed in good shape. However, without the added support of all the metal bits and pieces keeping it together, it would fall apart sooner or later. Thomas sat down and took a deep breath before slowly letting it out. His mana hadn't been drained so low in quite some time. He rested for a moment before he was forced to use the oars on the small boat to get himself back to the ship with Selena and Lexiana on it.

It took longer to row back to the ship than it would have if he'd used the little motor he'd made but without much mana, he couldn't use it. He still remembered how bad it felt to run out of mana and wanted to avoid that feeling as much as possible. It was like a terrible hangover without the enjoyment of having had a drink beforehand. Once he pulled the boat up next to the sloop, Selena and Lexiana dropped down a pair of ropes. Selena gestured to the bow and aft of the boat, "Tie those on before you climb up."

Once the ropes were tied to the boat, he scooped up Snowlily in one arm and used the rope ladder to board the ship. Holding Snowlily, he confirmed that she had definitely gotten a little bit bigger. He reminded himself to check her status once they were on their way. He was curious about how much stronger she had become during their separation. Once on board, he set Snowlily down and helped the two women pull the boat out of the water and onto the deck of the ship. Once it was lashed in place, the two women got to work setting sail. Thomas knew very little about sailing so he stayed as out of the way as he could. He'd always preferred to let other people do the sailing for him.

Once the ship was moving through the sea, Thomas joined the two women as they sailed the ship. It was finally time for some answers. Snowlily stuck to his side like glue and went where he went. He turned to Lexiana first, her presence was definitely the less desirable of the two. He decided to start out nice, his personal feelings about her aside she did help bring Snowlily back to him instead of trying to kidnap her and take her away. He had to give her at least a little bit of credit for that. He crossed his arms over his chest as he looked at her, "Time to explain. I went through a lot of effort to ditch you."

Lexiana smiled sweetly, "You really did. For a while there I thought I lost you in Utstad. Once I tracked you to the piers and realized you'd gotten onto a ship I thought I wouldn't ever find you again. But then fate intervened." She gestured to Selena, "I heard her asking one of the port officials about you. So, I followed her and when she booked passage on a ship heading north I followed her."

Selena at least had the decency to look a little embarrassed about being followed by Lexiana. Lexiana continued, "A few weeks into the trip, Snowlily appeared running on the surface of the ocean. Once I got her on board, she explained what happened to you and we made a deal."

Thomas immediately frowned. He did not like where this was going. Not. One. Bit. Seeing his frown Lexiana grinned playfully, "She promised that I could travel with you guys on two conditions. First, I had to rescue you from the pirates. Second, I had to promise to never try to take her anywhere against her will. I agreed on the condition that sometime in the next year you two would have to visit Sunden, my home countries capitol. You don't have to stay forever, just a week minimum."

Thomas groaned and looked down at Snowlily in concern. She looked guilty and hung her head in shame while letting out a little whimper. He immediately knelt down and stroked her head, "It's alright. You did what you felt you had to do to save me and I appreciate it. We'll keep your promise to her. Once I get my hands on the U.L.T.R.A. from Hekrin's master we'll head immediately to her country and get it over with."

Snowlily perked up a little under the petting and comforting words from Thomas. Like Thomas, she didn't really appreciate Lexiana sticking to them so much. There was no choice though once Thomas was captured by those pirates. Without someone to help her, she never would have been able to find him, let alone rescue him. Their bond wasn't strong enough for her to locate him over vast distances. Thomas continued to stroke her head as he looked back up to Lexiana, "So how did you find me?"

He had a suspicion about that but wanted to confirm it. Lexiana glanced at Selena before she spoke, "Once I had a deal with Snowlily, I approached Selena and introduced myself and Snowlily to her. Once I explained that we were looking for the same person we... well we eventually came to an understanding. You'll have to ask Selena for details on how she located you. I just followed her."

Selena looked uncomfortable as three pairs of eyes locked onto her. She fidgeted and blushed a little before pointing to the ring on Thomas's finger. She didn't say a word about it but Thomas immediately understood. It was as he expected. There was something about the ring that allowed her to track its location or direction and it led the three of them to him. He just nodded and didn't make any comments. He was a little irked that she had placed a tracking device on him. Even worse it was one he couldn't remove without putting himself in danger of being discovered with Unholy magic. On the flip side, he was kind of grateful because if they hadn't found him he would never have found Snowlily in those caves and may have taken a very long time to find her. Or worse, assumed she was dead and never look for her at all.

He was still fuzzy on the details for everything but he had a general idea of how things came to be, he had once more question though, "Why did you guys choose to attack today? I'm not complaining since I was planning to break out today but the timing seems a little too coincidental to me."

Lexiana chose to explain for the group, "We found the cave about three days ago. We were close enough for Snowlily to feel her connection to you. She said she felt that we should wait, so we did. She knows you better than us and has her connection to you as a Garou. This morning she let us know that we could attack. During the attack, Selena said you were moving around so it took some time to locate your position. After pushing the pirates back enough she left the group to find you. You know the rest."

Thomas just nodded his head and moved to one side of the ship to sit down. Snowlily lay down next to him and rested her head on his thigh. He stroked her head gently and sighed. He didn't know how to feel right now. He still had questions but his emotions were a bit scrambled making it hard for him to think. On one hand, he wanted to hug Selena and even Lexiana for bringing Snowlily back to him and making his escape so much easier. On the other hand, he wanted to shoot both of them in the head. Lexiana for obvious reasons such as taking advantage of the situation to stick to him and Snowlily. Selena for putting a tracking device on him that was very difficult for him to remove or get rid of until he found some sort of replacement. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back. He would have to deal with this problem another time. For now, he just wanted to stick close to his little ball of fluff and stroke her head.