Chapter 251: Old Smoke
As Joe pursued Blackgut into the sky, a glass jar with a chain attached fell next to the Butcher, breaking. The smoke inside the jar flowed into his mouth as he struggled to catch his breath from the blow Blackgut had dealt him. Images poured into his mind made of the thoughts and dreams mixed with his breath: Joe and Jenny searching for him, a maze of chains and smoke that needed a firm hand, and the gaze of an insane visitor from somewhere else. Worst of all was Suzettes nightmares. Mixed with her fears that he was never coming back were old dreams of pounding on the glass of a pod and no one coming to release her and nightmares where she couldn't remember her name, only the name people called her in a game. He experienced a dozen of the worst nightmares that Granny Gorpunkle had taken from her. He needed to go home!
The Butcher stood up and glared at the creatures around him. The undead fell back, avoiding him. Woodrat was yelling at him and pushing him toward the stairs leading down. "Damn it! Snap out of it! We need to go down! He'll be somewhere below us!"
The roaring in his ears stilled, but Ozzy was still angry. "Who?" Woodrat rolled his eyes. "Old Smoke. The first Cyclone. I swear you never pay attention to the important stuff! He has to have Old Smoke bound somewhere below. He'd never leave him chained up somewhere outside of his control. We need to find him and break the binding on him."
Ozzy looked up where the two Cyclones were trading blows. "You don't think Joe can take him?"
"I don't want to find out!! And if those two spar to long they'll break things. Like ships and islands. I'm quite happy having an actual ship under me for a change."
Ozzy remembered a hazy conversation when he'd been near death from too much heat. "The bilge. He's in the bilge." The Butcher headed down the stairs; charred sailors moved out of his way. Flickers of flame surrounded him. The charred saw him as someone else. They got out of that person's way. Woodrat stayed close behind the Butcher. Down, and further down they went, passed thousands of undead on each level, all wanting to be reborn in the bottom of the Smoke and be allowed to return to the living. Finally, they came to the last level. Charred bodies were stacked here like wood, unmoving except for their eyes. Ozzy inhaled, and Woodrat instinctively brought up his shield and aura. Ozzy exhaled; fire raced through the bottom of the ship, bodies turning to dust, and the spirits of the dead poured into him.
Woodrat looked at the old wood of the ship and put his hands on it. Planks shifted and rippled as the deck above the bilge pulled back and revealed the body of Old Smoke. Ozzy had thought he'd be bigger. He looked a lot like Joe with the same wrinkled, bald head and black skin. But Old Smoke was thin and worn. His time bound to the Black Galley hadn't been kind to him. He was bound to the ship with four chains attached to bolts driven into the hull. An iron gag kept him from speaking.
Woodrat produced a lockpick from somewhere and had the gag off instantly. Old Smoke responded by spitting to the side and cursing. He looked at them through eyes delirious with pain. "Here to gloat again? Come closer, and I'll tear your throat out!"
Ozzy took hold of one of the chains and tested it. His hands burned from the heat inside of them. The smoke of the chains was layered and twisted with fiery runes sandwiched between the layers. He could feel the smoke and heat drained from the chained Cyclone's feeble form. "How about you lay still, old timer, and I break you out of these chains?"
Old Smoke quit ranting. "Who the hell are you? Not Blackgut?" Woodrat produced a bottle of alcohol. "Rum? I imagine you're thirsty."
The Cyclone nodded and opened his mouth wide. Woodrat poured half the bottle down his throat. Old Smoke relaxed some. "Oh, that was sweet. It's been ages. Nice flavor to that stuff. It's good to have some fire in my belly, even if it means he'll steal that too." Ozzy noticed it was a bottle the doctor had been using that had the word 'medicine' scrawled across the label. Old Smoke looked to where Ozzy was examining his chains. "You won't break those. I tried early on when I still had some power left."
Ozzy wasn't a wizard. He had no training in magic. But he had gained a huge amount of experience from Heat the Sails and pushed his Aspect of Heat up to its new maximum of rank 15 as he pulled the heat from hundreds of sailors and released it again. His INT of 18 worked with the aspect to give him insight into how the runes were mixed with the smoke. Tight Chains helped him understand how they were made, and his natural cunning gave him ideas of how to un-make them. If the runes and layering gave the chains their strength, changing or destroying that magical coding would weaken them. Instead of trying to break the chain with just his muscles, he used Steal Smoke to remove the top layers from a link.
There was a lot of smoke in a very small spot! It came grudgingly at first, then poured into him. It refilled his smoke and then started spilling out of him. It poured into Old Smoke, who smiled at first, feeling a small amount of strength returning to him, and then grimaced as the chains stole it back. Ozzy could see the cycle but noticed it wasn't instantaneous. He pulled harder and kept pulling. The layer of smoke thinned, and then a gap appeared. He pulled the heat from the rune he could feel under the smoke. It burst with a shower of sparks, and the link weakened. When he pulled at the smoke, it didn't refill as fast. He worked his way down through a dozen layers, removing smoke and heat. The layers went on and on, but he had cracked the link. "You might want to step back, Woodrat. If this breaks, it will do more than a spark."
Woodrat shook his head. "I'm fine right here. I've got a powerful aura to ward off some fire, and I need to be here at the end of this."
The Butcher grabbed the chain in both hands and twisted the weakened link. His muscles stood out as he brought all of his strength to bear on one piece of hardened smoke. It was a considerable amount of strength. He had been at thirty-two when he ascended to Captain. A day of using Hack Undead to kill thousands of charred had raised his STR by four points to thirty-six. Push Onward brought that to forty-one!
And the chains and Old Smoke were part of the Black Galley. Whatever damage he could do was magnified by four times over by Shipbreaker. Ozzy strained with muscles and will, bending the link while stealing its smoke and further disrupting its runes. Smoke poured back into the link from the rest of the chain. Whoever had forged these hadn't believed in 'weakest links'; to break one link, he had to work against the whole chain! The link bent, and a small crack appeared. Ozzy's shoulders and muscles began to ache.
Captain Woodrat swung Blackfyre down doublehanded, the edge hitting the small crack in the chain. The sword flashed as it cut into the runes below, shattering more layers. The sword moaned as it drank in an endless supply of smoke. Both Ozzy and Woodrat were thrown back against the galley's hull as the link shattered and exploded.
High in the Skye, Blackgut felt something, and it distracted him. Joe took advantage of the distraction to hit him several times in a row, driving him over the horizon and terrifying the island inhabitants they passed over. "Not so tough now, are you? I still have a few good punches left in me, and they're all yours!"
Ozzy stood and helped Woodrat to his feet. He stretched, feeling coming back into his arms, and he picked up the second chain. "Are you up for another three of these, Captain Woodrat, sir?"
"Oh, indeed, I think I am, Captain Ozzy. Thanks for asking."
Old Smoke looked from one captain, then the other. "Of course, it would be a couple of crazed Captains that came to rescue me; who else would try?
Woodrat grinned. "Oh, we were crazy long ago when we were just a poor lost sailor and a Butcher adrift on the smoke. I do think we've gotten worse, though."
Old Smoke looked interested. "A Butcher? That explains a bit. You bound my brother and had him bring you here? I guess that's where you got the power to break that chain." He didn't look happy.
Ozzy was examining the next chain and didn't notice the distaste on Old Smoke's face. "Nope. Didn't bind him. I don't know how to bind anyone, and I don't want to learn."
Woodrat saw the surprise on Old Smoke's face. "You didn't bind him? Oh hell! No wonder that fight is still going on! They'll break a lot more than each other. Get these chains off of me!"
Ozzy was already pulling smoke from the second chain. He'd learned from last time. He was forcing his smoke into each end of the chain and pulling from the center. The rest of the chain couldn't heal the weak link as fast. Blackfyre was fully charged and eager for more. As soon as Woodrat saw a small crack, he brought the sword down, shearing through the link. This time, Ozzy shielded as well, and they were stunned for a moment but not knocked down. The Butcher grabbed the third chain.
Far away, over an unnamed island, the two Cyclones fought. The pirates who made this small bit of land their base didn't have time to flee in their ramshackle ship before the forces unleashed in the battle shattered both the ship and the island. Blackgut screamed and knew Old Smoke was breaking free. He attacked Joe in a fury, spending his strength and power to overwhelm the older Cyclone before he turned and fled, racing back to the Black Galley.
"You'd best hurry; he knows what you're doing. Joe was always a little stronger than me, but I was always the fasted flyer. If he heads this way, Joe won't be able to catch him before he kills you and rebinds me to this damned ship." Old Smoke was looking better now. He was breathing in the smoke and heat released from the chains and wasn't losing as much to the drain of the remaining ones. Ozzy picked up the third chain. His arms and back ached. He had to be careful not to pull muscles or dislocate a shoulder or elbow. Normally, that couldn't happen, but when Shipbreaker was in play, his enhanced strength and damage overwhelmed his other perks.
Woodrat looked at his sword. It was more powerful now. It had never been fully sated before. The additional smoke was letting it grow beyond what it was. "But he'll be weaker. We can take him if we can break even one more chain."
Old Smoke shook his head. "You think so? That damage you did before was because he let it happen. Just play-acting. Do you think I'd ever create something that could hurt me? I'm not an idiot!"
Woodrat cocked his head. "So how come we've found you sucking up the smoke in the bilge of his ship, and he's flying around like a Cyclone?"
Old Smoke coughed. "He tricked me. I only gave him a little bit of my power, and he used that to forge these chains and steal the rest!"
Woodrat rolled his eyes. Old Smoke sighed. "Yes, so maybe I am an idiot. But that doesn't change a thing. Even with a fraction of my power, there isn't a thing in the smoke that can really hurt him. He has the Mark of the Burning Man and my power to protect him."
Ozzy was done destroying runes and was straining his muscles against the third chain. Through gritting teeth, he said: "Then let's hurry and get these last two done, and then beat the crap out of him."
Blackgut felt the third chain break. He was running from the fight, which galled him to no end. He'd been winning! He could have had the power of both Old Cyclones and challenged the gods themselves. And he still had a chance. The last chain would be the hardest to break. He flew through the Skye until the Black Galley was below him. He dropped directly to the ship, smashing through the decks until he was just above the bilge. The last chain was still intact.
Old Smoke stood with the last chain firmly around his ankle. One of the seven Captains had his back to the wall, sword out, but lying on the deck. His hands were flat against the hull, and he was scared. Blackgut started to laugh, and then the ship's wood grew around him, the strong black timbers wrapping him up and holding him tight. Woodrat's eyes glowed. He'd spent over a century becoming the best wood wright any ship had ever had. And today, he was proving it. His aura flared, pushing back Blackgut's aura, and his trap held the renegade priest tight, if only for a moment.
A moment was all the Butcher needed. He had a chain wrapped around his fist like a set of brass knuckles. A chain made of metal alien to both the Conjunction and the Smoke. His enemy was caught by surprise and restrained. At level 12, One Fist of Iron did 120 points of damage plus an additional 205 for his huge STR of 41. Strike Undead added another 150 points of damage. Slaughter doubled his damage and gave a higher chance of a critical hit. Surprise helped as well. As Blackgut came into the bilge, Ozzy hit him as hard as he could in the head, snapping back his head and doing 1820 points of damage. Blackgut had no defense at all against the alien metal. Strange concepts and words that should never be spoken filled his mind, and he screamed.
Ozzy raced to the fourth chain and began again to break through the layers of runes. Woodrat amused himself by stabbing Blackgut through each eye as he lay stunned. He didn't know if it would damage him, but it surely couldn't hurt. He hurt the chain crack and turned to Ozzy. Blackfyre came down hard on the cracked metal, stealing its smoke and cutting through more runes. Blackgut started to stand, but before he could, the link broke, and the last chain binding Old Smoke to him was gone.
The grinning Cyclone walked to Blackgut, smoke and fire pouring from his ex-captor and back into him. Blackgut ceased to exist, crumbling to dust. Old Smoke shouted, and his winds carried him aloft to the deck.
Joe was waiting there for him. "Are you done killing him yet? If not, I need to punch him in the head some more."
Old Smoke laughed. "He's dead, and his soul will never be allowed to reform, not in a thousand years. A good think for your old bones, he was kicking the wind out of you. You're lucky these two lads freed me."
Joe saw Ozzy and Woodrat emerge from the lower decks. "You're lucky I sent you my Butcher."
Ozzy looked at the two ancient creatures thinking they wouldn't look out of place playing checkers at a general store. "If it's alright with the two of you, this Butcher wants to go home."
Old Smoke nodded. "Least I can do. Let's get the hell out of here before the damnable gods show up."
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