Bro, I'm not an Undead!



"It's here."

***

Pherdanta steered the ship in a curve. She only brought it to a halt when it was far to the right, behind six other ships that pointed towards the great red hue.

Replicus had spawned on deck.

The lighting in his sockets spoke volumes about how he felt towards the surging Undeath housing the slowly sinking vessel everyone was undoubtedly paying attention to.

Finally, the masked man...

Had they truly caught up to him?

Given that Eaniss' ship, which Replicus had marked earlier, was also here, it was fair to assume that the masked man truly was cornered. Eaniss surely wouldn't be fooled easily, right?

"Is it a barrier of some kind? A barrier of Undeath?" Allora asked anxiously.

"It should be. Otherwise why hasn't everyone just attacked?" Grim said.

Replicus remained silent.

That was indeed odd.

Everyone was just waiting here, making the tension grow each second as the subtle noise of the rain persisted.

From what he could see, nothing of note had shown yet from show the sinking vessel ahead, either on its deck, or on its bowsprit which was facing up. Soon, those two would be the only options left for the masked man if he didn't want to taste the corrosive ebony waters.

Why wasn't he coming out?

He couldn't teleport.

He couldn't fly.

He erected the tall, winding red frame around the ship as a shield most likely, but for what?

'Why do I feel so uneasy about this?' Replicus thought.

Well, he was sure everyone was feeling the same.

The second wave of undead he had surmised would come the next time they saw a semblance of the masked man were yet to be seen. What was the necromancer's angle?

"Stay on guard. I'll be back," Replicus said.

"Where are you going?" Pherdanta immediately lurched forward.

"To get some answers."

With that, the Penetrator leapt from the ship and began to create clouds that he stepped on, climbing over the ships in his way, and in-between some of them. He had gone left from his own vessel, and soon, he was standing close to his destination.

He looked through the golden umbrella-shaped barrier of the vessel closest to the ominous red, towering pillar, and his sockets met the relaxed, ocean blue gaze from Eaniss' upturned eyes.

Adorned in the peach-coloured armour with an emerald flame, she looked as impressive as always. The sly expression she donned didn't impress Replicus as much though.

"Come on in," she urged the Penetrator, the barrier to the ship dissipating.

Replicus dropped to the ship's deck with a light leap, and the barrier returned behind him.

"Look who it is..." a voice that didn't belong to Eaniss said and Replicus wasn't too pleased to see Aurolio as its owner.

The pale man had an irritating smirk on his face as he stood close to Eaniss.

Aside from the two, Replicus saw fourteen dark humanoid figures, all placed strategically around the deck. It didn't seem like Eaniss brought another living soul on this excursion beside Aurolio.

"So..." Replicus said, and pointed towards the red glow "...what's that all about?"

Eaniss crossed her arms before her chest.

"Our catch. As soon as we caught up to him, he immediately warded himself with this impenetrable layer of Undeath. Nasty business. It won't budge for anything," she said, and looked ahead at the smoking ship behind the red.

Replicus looked towards it too.

"Why is the ship damaged then?" he asked.

"It isn't so obvious, is it?" Eaniss said while tilting her head his way. "We enjoyed the luxury of these vessels carrying us through terrible ordeals without understanding how brilliant their design truly was. The Emissary was pretty generous. The masked man likely couldn't procure an adequate vehicle. As you can see, his couldn't last against these conditions."

"Really?"

Replicus was astounded.

He thought the masked man would have a pretty good vessel too. Of all the things he could have lacked foresight on.

Weird.

But then...

"I assume you caught him off guard, then. By messing with time perhaps," Replicus said sharply.

Eaniss turned to him. So did Aurolio.

She chortled.

"You figured it out, huh? Of course you did," she said.

"You had one of your crazy humanoids retrieve one of those time-screwing Clusters, didn't you?" Replicus added.

Eaniss smiled and extended her hand forward.

In a blink, something appeared in her palm.

It was something Replicus, in another lost continuum of time, had found hard to describe, but only because he barely saw it for more than a moment.

The object looked much like a Rubik's cube, well, if the Rubik's cube had its nine square's on each side replaced with the conical ends of small trumpets.

It looked fleshy, membranous and translucent, as though it were some living organism – with twitches of life too – and a plethora of colours danced within it and its 32 ends.

Replicus' sockets blazed at the sight of it.

"What is that?" he asked.

"A storage vessel that gives whoever wields it free reign and control over anything it has trapped," Eaniss generously explained. "Sadly, only one object can be stored at a time, and whatever is stored loses its potency the more you manipulate it."

'That's conveniently dangerous!' Replicus thought to himself.

"Quite the sight, isn't it? Feeling a little greedy?" Eaniss asked smilingly.

"Not quite," Replicus said, but his eyes kept on the cube. "So what? You reversed time on the sea and had the masked man's ship dial back?"

"Precisely."

Replicus' sockets went dim.

That was just a guess.

"Thought that would have gotten the bastard flustered" Aurolio spoke as he too gazed at the bright red, "It didn't."

"Indeed," Eaniss said as she stored back the cube. "That's what concerns me. I'm convinced the masked man hasn't been underestimating us – his pursuers. The Ardent Curses incident convinced me of that much. He's been wary. Wary enough to – like you – have contingencies even against the unexpected reversal of time. Our assignment's description wasn't false advertisement, Bright Storm."

"You've lost your confidence all of a sudden? I thought you brought the few best along with you because you believed that was enough – even though you left the Mad Bishop behind," Replicus said.

"I still am confident," Eaniss said. "And please, I didn't want a volatile component to an otherwise perfect team."

There was an astounding bit of sincerity in that statement.

Eaniss then looked at the dark sea that was constantly been pelted by dark drops.

"Not to worry. I have measures that just might be ready to break through this obstacle."

Replicus was sceptical about that.

But better yet...

"Are you sure he's in there?" he asked Eaniss.

"Too damn sure," Aurolio answered on the Head Faction leader's behalf, his eyes which were brimming with Voided Death Essence staring at one point within the ship where he was certain a great, vibrant plume of pure, almost sacred Undeath energy was balled into one human figure.

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