Published at 12th of September 2024 8:38 pm

Book 2 Chapter 62: He Needed Help This Time

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Dantes could feel the boat beginning to slowly sink as he looked around the cabin. He wouldn’t be strong enough to swim through the holes through which the water was pouring as a rat or a roach, at least not until the cabin was completely filled. That forced him to wait. He sloshed through the water toward where Mercedes had left her bottle of wine. Somehow, it had stayed on the table in spite of everything. He lifted it up and took a swig from it, letting the warmth of it spread through him and take a bit of the edge off the pain of the various bruises, bone fractures, and cuts across his body. If not for the improved energy and healing he received from his gardens he estimated that by now he should probably have the body of a sixty year old dockhand that had done hard labor all his life.

He pulled the stem of the wine glass that Mercedes had stabbed him with out of his chest with a grimace and tossed it into the water with a splash. The boat had sunk another several feet. From what he could tell, the water was coming in through dozens of small holes rather than a single big one. He searched the cabin and found one of them. He then pulled one of Mercedes’s crossbows from his belt and fired at it, widening it a bit with an explosion. He tried several more times, but it was still a tight fit for his rat form, which meant that once the cabin was filled he’d have to try and find his way out as a roach. He didn’t relish the idea of being that small in a dangerous situation, but the risk certainly beat drowning.

He took another swig from the bottle. Jacopo crawled just a bit higher on his shoulder as the water began to reach his waist. He closed his eyes and focused on all of those threads of life that were connected to him. He began to pull at them, drawing that life into himself, then he focused more deeply, on himself. It had been a lot harder to do since he’d been in his state of odd delirium after his fight with Mondego, but he managed to bring his focus down to those almost invisible parts of his body near where he’d been hurt. He pushed that life force into those tiny pieces nearest to where he was injured, and watched as all of them seemed to speed up and work faster to address whatever damage he’d sustained. He didn’t fully understand what they were doing, but he could tell after only a few moments that it was helping.

He kept that flow of lifeforce going in the back of his mind, and turned the rest of his attention elsewhere. He released all of the vermin who he’d had standing at the ready to swarm into the boat so that they didn’t hurt themselves or drown, then he shifted his attention to Mondego’s manor. Guards and servants were milling about wildly searching the grounds, and even through the senses of a pigeon in a tree he could hear Mondego screaming from inside the manor, his every word causing those inside to jump and scramble at whatever order he made. Nearly a third of his guards were leaving the manor and moving toward different parts of the city. Some headed toward Needle Street, others toward the docks, and a few actually made their way toward some of the nicer bars bordering Uptown. It wasn’t difficult to come to the conclusion that they were searching for Mercedes.

Dantes took a third sip. The water was nearly to his chest so he needed to hold the bottle a bit higher than he’d like, but it wasn’t exactly his biggest concern. This was the chance he’d been waiting for, and Mondego and Mercedes had created it for him. It was lucky, but he was also hesitant. He’d been fucked over by rushing in so many times before. With Gaspard and Danglars he’d taken things slow and steady and his victory over them was absolute. Mondego had taken one of his hands, and Mercedes came far too close to killing him. He was worn down after his fight with Mercedes, even with the targeted recovery he was giving himself. At the same time, he’d been preparing for his assault on Mondego’s Manor for months, and his vermin marks were all nearly full. If Mondego managed to recover from everything that had just happened it could also make him all the more dangerous, particularly since Dantes had only so much leeway with those Lieutenants he’d met with as well as the Fingers. How would they react to him not taking this opportunity to finish things?

Dantes tread some water and moved to stand on a side table that would let him keep his head above water without exhausting himself, Jacopo moved to the top of his head. The ship hit the seafloor and rocked a bit, the force of the impact made the holes expand, causing the water to fill the boat more quickly.

He looked at his left arm, eyeing the leaf tattoos on his arm. He wondered if the other druids could sense his distress. He’d felt Murk experiencing some, and ignored it in response to being ignored when he was suffering from the destruction of his blood garden. Still, he wouldn’t mind some assistance now, but he didn’t expect it by any means. He pulled out the silver coin Wane had given him and held it up above his face where he could look at it for a moment. With some mage help… things would be very different.

He put his arm back in the water and carefully placed the coin back into the pocket it had been in and buttoning it. He was holding his head vertically to keep breathing while Jacopo clung to his hair and breathed through his nose sticking out of the surface of the water. The cabin was nearly full. He kept his breathing calm, and took one final breath as the water reached the top of the cabin, and pushed himself down. It was pitch black, but he could feel through the water that Mercedes’s body was floating near him. He pushed his way toward the hole he’d widened, with Jacopo clinging to him, and once he reached it and confirmed that water wasn’t pushing its way in anymore, he shifted into roach form.

He immediately felt a kind of relief as a roach. The pressure that had been building from holding his breath now seemed negligible. He crawled, having to fight not to float, until he made it out of the boat and into the ocean. He could sense dozens of fish, crabs, and other creatures approaching the boat now that it was settled. Jacopo shifted back into ratform and started to swim quickly toward the surface

Before Dantes could be the same, a large fish swam quickly toward him. He sent out a general no to the fish, but couldn’t properly speak to him in roach form. The fish moved toward him and swallowed him whole.

Dantes shifted into ratform, breaking the fish's jaw as he did so, and began pushing his way to the surface, finding it much more pressing in ratform than he had as a roach. He was almost to the surface when he felt himself flagging, and he shifted back to himself to give himself the extra height to break the surface with only one more stroke and take a deep breath. He waded for a few seconds recovering, then pushed himself toward the nearest dock.

Jacopo moved to cling to his back, and when he reached the dock he held up his wooden hand and sent his wooden fingers out like vines to cling to it, then had them retract to pull him up. Even with that helping him, he stayed as a collapsed heap on the dock for several minutes as he caught his breath.

Luckily it was dusk and no one saw him, but even if they had he wasn’t exactly in a position to tidy himself up out of pride. He pulled himself to his feet and started walking, dripping wet as he did so, toward Mondego’s manor. He took the silver coin Wane had given him, pricked his finger on the dagger he’d had up his sleeve and smeared a drop of blood across it. At the same time he did that, he began sending orders for the pigeons he’d had staying in his garden with the packages he’d been preparing to start picking them up. He had a separate few pigeons pick up a pen, a piece of parchment, and a piece of string to bring it to him. Doing things alone had nearly gotten him killed too often. He needed help this time. He wanted to live past his revenge.

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