Chương 374: (367) 5.63. We Need a Plan

"What?" Vin asked, recoiling at the news.

"Why on earth would the ranker king himself take the time to personally watch them? I'm sure he's got better things to do than babysit three confused humans!"

"Actually, it makes sense," Shia admitted, scowling at the news.

"Think about it. The ranker king wants nothing more than to figure out a way past the fragments keeping them contained. You've already let slip that you're incredibly experienced when it comes to wandering Edregon, and he knows those three are important to you. Enough so that you risked crossing through dangerous terrain in search of them. He must figure you won't leave them behind, so keeping them close is the best way for him to get his hands on you again."

"My thoughts exactly," Spur sighed.

"There's nothing worse than an enemy with both strength and intelligence. So yeah, the situation is 'tricky' indeed."

"I mean, he can't keep watch over them forever, right?" Vin asked, looking between everyone.

"Surely we can just wait for him to grow bored and send them off to the dungeon or something, can't we?"

"We could certainly try… but there's the risk that he'll start doing things to motivate you to hurry up," Spur said, frowning at the thought.

"Torture would be the obvious. Or simply killing them. This all hinges on him thinking you somehow have a method of still knowing what's going on within the fragment of course, but who knows, maybe he'll just scream his actions from the top of his castle."

"Okay, so what do we do?" Vin asked.

"Rescuing hostages from the leader of an enemy fragment who drastically overpowers us… I'm a bit out of my depth here."

"We all are," Phil grunted.

"Nobody wants to say it, but realistically, the safest move is to just leave them behind. If you hadn't stumbled upon them, we would have just assumed they were dead anyway."

"Leaving your own people to die, just like that?" Shia asked, narrowing her eyes at Phil.

"I can't believe you would even propose such an idea. Let alone give up on a fight, you of all people."

"The man hit a flying target moving at speed from a quarter of a mile away using a thrown sword," Phil said bluntly.

"And according to you all, the rankers don't use or train in ranged weaponry either, which makes the feat all the more astonishing. We don't have a single fighter who can take him on. Not even me."

"Then obviously, we don't fight," Vin argued.

"Forget the ranker king, they've got over ten thousand warriors just itching to attack someone. We're not leaving the three Earthers behind, but we need to focus on getting them out without fighting. With that in mind, how strong the ranker king is doesn't matter."

"An excellent idea, but how do you propose we do such a thing?" Spur drawled.

"Believe me, I'm all ears if you have a genuine idea. But as it stands, I just don't see any way we could mount a rescue attempt that doesn't put any of our most valuable personnel in extreme danger. I know you want to rescue everyone you can, Vin, but as much as you hate to hear it, you are worth far more than three people who are almost certainly still level 1. It's not worth the risk."

"Alright, why don't we all take a brief siesta before things get any more heated than they already are, hmm?" Theodore suggested, getting to his feet and flashing everyone a warm smile.

"Vin said they still have a few more fragments that they need to check out before confirming that the rankers truly are trapped, and I didn't hear anyone talking about the ranker king doing anything drastic to the missing Earthers anytime soon."

"I think that's an excellent idea," Spur said, tucking his notes under his arm and getting to his own feet.

"Phil and I have been debriefing Theodore for a while now, I know I at least could use a bite to eat. Phil, interested?"

"Fine. But only if it isn't the Chef that tries to put fish in every one of her dishes," he said, getting up and walking out of the council room.

"But she's the one with the tangy sauce that I like!" Spur whined as he followed him out. As soon as the door closed behind them, Theodore's smile faltered, and he sighed, sinking back down into his chair. Leaning forward, he fixed the two of them with a hard look.

"If you guys are going to make an attempt on rescuing the missing Earthers, I want to help. And it would be better to do it sooner than later."

"I thought you just said you didn't think the ranker king would do anything anytime soon," Shia pointed out.

"I said I didn't hear anyone mention anything, that's a big difference," Theodore corrected.

"You want to know the main takeaway I got from my time spent sneaking around the keep? The ranker king is a wild card. The rankers technically have their council of eleven to supposedly keep the king in check, but the concept doesn't actually work in practice. Apparently, the ranker king is so skilled, rumor is he could take on and defeat the entire council, even if they all attacked him at the same time.

With that in mind, none of them would dare trying to challenge him in single combat, which means he basically does whatever he wants, whenever he wants."

"If he can take on the second through eleventh ranked warriors of his people all on his own, then we really need to make sure we don't fight him," Vin said, shivering at the thought. Even now, he could imagine the ranker king's cold gaze staring at him from the ground of his keep as Vin shot away toward the dungeon.

"Theodore, you spent the past few days within the keep, do you have any ideas for getting them out?" Lumel asked, finally speaking up now that Spur and Phil had left.

"With my spatial magic, all we really need is some sort of distraction. Some method of getting the ranker king away from the missing Earthers, even if only for a few seconds. They shouldn't know we have access to spatial magic, seeing as Vin had to break himself out and physically flew away rather than just vanishing." If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

"No, that's not true," Vin winced, cursing as he replayed his brief time before the ranker king in his head.

"When I was brought before the ranker king with Emrelda and Grunch, I talked about having a Dimensional Mage as my ally. I was trying to persuade Emrelda to give up the missing Earthers, I never considered I needed to keep you a secret from them."

"Alright, that makes this just a little bit trickier, but we can still figure something out," Shia said, tapping her chin as she scrunched up her face in thought.

"Even if the ranker king knows we have access to spatial magic, all we need to do is come up with something big enough to demand his attention regardless of the fact. Something more important than guarding three random humans in the hopes you might show up for them." Vin started as the answer came to him all of a sudden, and he turned to grin at Shia as it hit him. Not only did they have the perfect distraction available to them, they were already in the middle of preparing it.

"Something like the entire population of the only two fragments they've already conquered trying to flee the alliance?" he asked, laughing as Shia's eyes widened.

"Yeah… Yeah, I think that might just do it," she said, laughing right alongside him.

"Fantastic joke!" Theodore said, clapping as he joined in the laughter as well.

"... What are we laughing about?" After realizing that their decision to help Emrelda and Grunch free their people from the rankers went hand-in-hand with rescuing the missing Earthers, Vin was eager to throw himself headfirst into coming up with an official plan for accomplishing the two objectives. But before they could actually tackle any of that, they had a certain Slayer that they needed to meet back up with.

A few quick warps later and one dash through the Underside, and they were back at the pixies' fragment before they knew it. Theodore had wanted to come with them, but he didn't have any method of keeping up with their speed, and Vin was already carrying one person on his back. He'd promised the Spy that he'd come back for him if they thought they could benefit from his help after they started discussing actual plans with Emrelda and Grunch, and that seemed good enough to satisfy him for now.

"Wow, that was a lot faster than I'd expected," Scule said, yawning as they found him lounging around outside the dungeon entrance.

"Did Theodore have good news?"

"Good and bad, but news we can work with at least," Vin nodded.

"What have you been up to?"

"Oh, you know. Just taking a nap," Scule shrugged.

"Back to the goblins?"

"Yeah. We need to get Garni to lead us across her fragment again, and then officially meet back up with Alka and our guides. Ready to head out?"

"As always!" Scule said, scurrying up onto his shoulder as Reginald flopped into his pocket.

"Onward!" As the group made their way back to the goblins' fragment, they didn't even bother to slow down when they spotted another one of the furry salamander monsters rushing toward them. Shia slaughtered it in an instant with a ranged cast of Grass Spikes, and they continued on their merry way. Vin used Mental Map to lead them back to the exact point they were supposed to meet Garni, and after Lumel warped them through the wall, the small goblin jumped at their sudden appearance.

"Spooky!" she laughed, grinning as she clutched at her heart.

"What's the plan? Ready to open the wall?"

"Not yet, we need to head back to the other side of your fragment and meet up with our friend first," Vin said, eyeing up the golem beside her and noticing how there were now small sapphires embedded in the knuckles on the construct's left hand.

"... What's with the new look?"

"Oh, new fad!" Garni said, her smile widening as they stared at her golem.

"After yesterday's punch at the conclave, many goblins decided to decorate their golems after your arm. I was out of white paint, so went with the 'blue-knuckle' look instead."

"Of course they did," Vin sighed, shaking his head before hopping into the minecart.

"Come on everyone, let's get out of here before the goblins decide to copy my hairstyle next."

"Please, you think anyone would copy that raggy mess you call a hair style?" Scule snorted as the others took their seats and they took off across the fragment.

"One of these days I need to teach you how to actually look good."

"Remind me, which one of you two actually has a girlfriend again?" Shia asked, smirking at Scule's affronted look.

"Hey, I'm working on it!" he snapped, before grumbling and turning away. The minecart ride was smooth and fast, and Vin jotted down a quick note in his journal to see about potentially putting together a trade deal with the goblins for the technology at some point. Garni had explained how the details around the golems were a goblin secret, but maybe the minecarts were still fair game.

"Alright, we shouldn't be too long," he promised her as they hopped out of the minecart back where they'd first entered the fragment. Rather than risking working on a plan in the beastkin fragment where patrolling rankers could jump them at any moment, Vin was planning on grabbing Alka, Grunch, and Emrelda and bringing them to this side of the wall instead. Telling his friends to wait a moment, Vin used his boots to run up the side of the goblin's wall, earning a gasp from Garni, followed by excited laughter.

Once he'd made it to the top, he was surprised to find Alka and their two guides waiting just on the other side of the wall.

"You guys are back already?" he asked, dropping down to join them with a cast of Slow Fall.

"How were the other two fragments?"

"Just as bad as these guys claimed," Alka snorted, shaking her head.

"Try a fragment filled with some sort of eternal storm ravaging the landscape with winds strong enough to throw boulders around like they didn't even weigh anything, and another fragment that had a surface covered in what looked like shards of glass."

"Glass? Like the crystal desert?"

"No, at least that one had crystals small enough that they were basically grains of sand. I'm talking about just different sizes of jagged crystals everywhere. You'd tear yourself to shreds just trying to walk ten feet into it, regardless of how thick your shoes are. It didn't matter to me of course, but I jogged a ways into it to check it out and it didn't get any better."

"A few of my people have tried putting together structures to traverse the fields of shards, but they never last long," Emrelda confirmed.

"Another example of a fragment a handful of us could probably escape through given enough time and effort, but certainly not our whole people."

"I wonder if my magical boots would hold up against something like that," he muttered, before shaking his head.

"Anyway, that's not important at the moment. If those two fragments are also impassible to the rankers like you said, then that means we're officially good to start putting together a plan. It's high time we said goodbye to the rankers and their king once and for all."