6 Chapter 6 : Deceive the heavens to cross the sea.

I poked my phone out and used the camera to peek past the last piece of cover on the path now, a fountain wall from a nearby enclosure, and scanned the road around me to make sure I was only facing the one guy. The fountain I was hiding around was one with twin gold statues of Anubis facing away from each other on it, that was quite a ways from the Earth fountain, just an un-intuitive distance and path from the Earth fountain, something I chose not only because this out of the way, long winded path was the only route with few patrols and lot's of cover, but also because it would be hard to connect me to the Earth fountain this way.

After all, information is king in modern warfare. The less they know about me and where I come from, the better. It also helped when it came to avoiding the detection of tracking spells. If cast with the wrong parameters, like their assumption of which world I came from, their tracking spells would reveal nothing about me. This was the same method that the crazy dragonologist chick used to steal dragon splooge in the show. She used a tranquilizer dart from Fillory so when the dragon cast a tracking spell, it couldn't figure out where on Earth the thief had come from, because, in fact, she hadn't come from anywhere on 'Earth' in the first place.

If this trick can fool an ancient dragon, it can fool the Beast.

Truly, the circumstances used in casting a spell can make or break it. And I plan to abuse this weakness today.

I checked everything one last time and went over my plan again as I saw the lone mercenary walking down the path.

Alright, draw him in here, mess with his spell, slam him to the ground and electrocute him till he's deader than my eyes in the morning.

Loosening the straps on the backpack, I slung it across my left shoulder and over my arm like a shield, and tightened my grip around the super-taser in my right. Nothing like a high stress combat situation to remind you how utterly out of shape you truly are.

My legs still hurt, my arms still had little cuts on them, though the bleeding had largely staunched, and I had my doubts about this plan.

Even after the preliminary checks I had made with my calculations, there really is no way to know if my plan will work without being able to use magic myself, but at least it was something. If nothing else, my backpack will tank at least one spell for me, and that should give me one good shot at the guy before he can cast another.

I took a deep breath and snuck my phone halfway past the wall, checking the distance between me and the merc.

30 meters.

I waited. This had to be time right.

25 meters.

Okay, okay, okay.

20 meters.

Just a little more. Just enough to let him register his proximity to this fountain.

15 meters.

And it's go time.

I dashed out from behind the wall, and barreled towards him, my bag slung before me like a battering ram.

I couldn't win against him in a straight fight. But this wasn't a straightforward fight, it was an ambush.

My sudden appearance startled the dark skinned man and his eyes went wide for the briefest moment before fight or flight kicked in for him, almost immediately. He was a veteran of the Neitherlands after all, it was to be expected. I was actually relying on it.

Within the second he went from startled to battle ready, and then in another, he began to cast, just as I got to him.

"Hah! Idiot." He laughed, as the first embers of flame appeared on his palm, and he slapped him hand forward, when-

Pshh!

The flames suddenly sputtered and vanished, the fireball imploding in on itself, leaving him confused as I slammed into him like a wrecking ball, sending him tumbling to the floor with me. He slammed hard into the paved stone path, and grunted out with pain, concussed as his head hit the floor hard.

Immediately, I got onto him, kneeing him through the bag, pressing down on him with all my weight as he struggled to free himself.

"Haat dhi yu do-?" He growled but I didn't answer, only slamming the butt of my taser onto his temple, again, and again, brutalizing him till I saw his eyes swim and felt the pipe crack in my hands and he stopped struggling against me.

I panted as I rolled off of him and massaged my hands for moment. Adrenaline was coursing through my veins, my heart pounded like a war drum in my chest and my blood was rushing to my head, throbbing from exertion. My whole body was aching from head to toe and my muscles were crying in pain. My head was spinning a little, my eyes felt heavy and leaded. I just wanted to go home and nod off but that will have to wait. I have no time to waste. I have a dream to fulfill.

I looked back at the man on the ground and huffed.

Now for the finishing blow.

I didn't wait for him to recover and stood in the clear, making sure no part of me was touching him before I jabbed the super-taser into his calves, emptying the entire charge into him.

"Who's the idiot now, bitch!" I laughed, and watched him writhe on the floor in a seizure, foaming at the mouth till the taser stopped outputting any power.

I heaved a long sigh and fell to the floor.

Hah.

I looked down at the little white baton that had served me well and checked it once more, just in case.

No sparks flew between the screws as I pressed the button.

Yup. It's out of charge.

There goes my super-taser.

Well, at least I don't have any more enemies to face.

I looked back at the man laying on the floor beside me, dead and took a deep breath.

Alright. Now for the coup de grace.

I stuffed the taser into my bag and slung it on my back, before dragging the merc's corpse over to the Anubis fountain, laying him with his back against the ledge.

This was the most important part and the most gruesome.

Taking out the knife, I sliced open his stomach and sides, letting his guts tumble down his lap and onto the floor, blood leaking everywhere as it pooled onto the stone floor around me, painting quite the macabre scene. But just to be extra sure, I grabbed the man's guts, and wrapped them around his neck, strangling the corpse with them till they left a mark, before leaving them there, like a meat noose around his neck. Then cupping out handfuls of water from the Anubis fountain I splashed it around, making it look like a struggle had taken place here after someone came out from the fountain.

Finally, I stood back up and splashed my shoes in his blood, generously dying them red till they were dripping wet and walked out of the enclosure, leaving bloodstained tracks behind, leading out away from the direction of the Fillory fountain. Then, carefully retreading by tracks backwards to make sure I left no other traces, I returned to grizzly scene and took off the dirty shoes, jumping onto the grass to the side, satisfied in my handiwork.

Alright, this should do.

Do what exactly?

The same thing that fighting the mercenary near the fountain did - messing with the circumstances of spellcasting.

Circumstances were an integral part of spellcasting in this world. They were factors that needed to be taken into account when casting a spell. The same way a verb needs to agree with the subject of a sentence, every spell's circumstances need to agree with it's intended effect. It was basically magic grammar. Even the simplest spell needs to be adjusted for the circumstances it is cast in, and the more complex the spell, the more circumstances they need to account for, from internal circumstances like the age of the caster and their current mood to external circumstances like the temperature of the surroundings, time of day, phase of the moon, dew point, altitude, wind speed and direction and in the case of the mercenary, the nearest body of water, no matter how small.

Mess with even one circumstance and the entire spell falls apart, like what happened to our cute, little roadkill here.

Knowing that cannibal bandits aren't exactly learned scholars, I figured his mode of attack would most likely be the fireball spell. I had the spell formula with me, having looted it from that girl's corpse and the calculations were completed in short order with my phone calculator, letting me figure out its weakness. Not that it was a weak spell in general, not at all. It was the perfect spell for someone like him. Ranged, powerful, versatile and most importantly, intimidating. Nothing breaks a target's will to fight like a fireball to the face. Growing up here, he probably had it down to muscle memory now, so when he saw he was near the Anubis fountain, he factored the fountain as the nearest body of water in his casting, almost instinctively. Little did he know that there was another body of water far closer. A bottle of water in my backpack. Yes, that's how bullshit magic was. Even a puddle's worth of water counts as an independent body of water. And with that his spell fizzled out, signing his death sentence.

Similarly, this grizzly scene I had orchestrated served the same purpose.

I had no doubts that once I leave, someone will find this guy's body. Maybe soon, maybe later, but his friends will come for him, and when they find him dead, they'll ask a question. How did he die?

I just wanted to make the wrong answer utterly apparent for them.

Someone came out of the Anubis fountain, they fought, he was strangled to death and then gutted like an animal and the attacker left in a direction away from the Fillory fountain.

This way, if they even report this death to the Beast, he'll think it has no relation to him or his plans. Some rogue traveler killed a random mercenary. No big deal, nothing to look into. And the two very different ways I killed the two mercenaries at the two fountains means no one will connect them to the same person, especially with the time dilation that happens here- one hour here meant a week or so on Earth and I'm willing to bet it's about the same on other worlds too- by the time they report the discovery of the two bodies, it will be a difference of at least a couple hours, if not days or weeks between their deaths from his point of view.

Subtle plays on the way people think, yet surprisingly effective. Serial killers do this all the time. At least the smart ones do.

And on the off chance that he does decide to look into it here's what will happen.

He'll come here, he'll see the gruesome fight, and he'll immediately rule out the main cast or anyone from Earth, and not only because the footprints lead away from the Fillory fountain or that the time loop hasn't started yet but because the main cast are too lawful good to commit such savagery. Now since he has no more clues, he'll try to find some and not using detective skills. Nope.

He's a magician, ergo he thinks like a magician. The first thing he'll do when he gets here is cast a locator spell. And what circumstances will he use?

One traveler, from the wherever the Anubis fountain leads.

I'm neither a traveler nor from this world, so....

Wrong circumstances means no answer, and he'll never realize it had anything to do with me. Ultimately, he'll let it go since it has nothing to do with his world and return to torture Christopher Plover in his dungeons or whatever else he does all day, waiting for the time loop to start and I'll be safe from any and all repercussions.

Complicated? Yes.

But my life is worth all the effort.

Once I had completed my preparations, I changed from my modern clothes to the mediaeval cosplay I had brought, replacing my bloodstained shoes with hardy leather boots. I slung my bow and arrow across my back, and stuffed all the basic survival tools, like the flint and steel, my copper water bottle and old timey compass among others into my leather messenger bag.

I picked up the mountaineering backpack in my hands, looked left and right, checking for any more mercenaries that might have come around in the time it took me to get ready- thankfully there were none- and made my way over the Fillory fountain. This has already taken too long.

As I approached the Fillory fountain from the side, I looked around for a good bush to hide the backpack. One hour here was a week out there, so I wasn't particularly afraid of it getting stolen, since I planned on returning in just a few days. Even if it was stolen, I had a backup of all my data on my home computer and nothing else in it was worth much anyways.

I found it not far from the Fillory fountain, a patch of thick shrubbery by its rear entrance and made my way over to it when suddenly I stopped in my tracks in alarm.

Was that-?

I immediately ducked behind a wall and held my breath as voices could be heard from the other side.

Two people, I could tell from their voices, even though they were too far to make out what they were saying. On the other side, in the Fillory fountain's enclosure.

I sucked in a cold breath.

Fuck.

Fuck!

I swear the fountain was empty when I checked it out from the top of the tree, some twenty minutes ago.

And now there were two mercenaries in there.

How am I supposed to fight two of them? I can barely handle one at a time!

And now I don't even have my taser.

I clutched my fist in anger.

After all that work, all that sneaking around... Dammit.

This world is just hellbent on making my plans go sideways isn't it?

I could feel my anger go past the boiling point. I am just about done with this bullshit.

I. Am. Done.

Fuck it.

Fuck it all.

I'm gonna kill-No.

I caught myself.

No.

Taking deep breaths I calmed myself down. I need to think with a clear head here. Yes. I just need to think calmly and find a solution. I'm still pumping with all that adrenaline from that fight earlier, it's making me too damn trigger happy.

I smiled.

Guess battle edge is a real thing huh?

Almost popped my head with that shit.

I sighed and shook my head.

I can't kill them. It'll be too obvious and my previous work will go to waste.

I need to distract them. Get them away from here.

Yes. That's it.

Using my phone, I checked their positions in the enclosure and saw that they were sitting so close to the fountain they might as well be skinny dipping in it. So I can't pull the same trick as earlier on them.

But all is not lost. I can still wing it.

I opened up my bag and looked around to see what I could use and a smile bloomed on my face as the idea struck me.

Sutli bombs, powerful meatball sized firecrackers I had bought from Little India in London to scare away animals in Fillory.

But now I had other plans for them.

I'm about to go all Rambo up in this bitch.

Taking out an arrow and some leftover electrical tape from my bag I taped up a few of the firecrackers to it, before nocking it on the bow.

A 60 pound draw weight recurve bow can launch an arrow up to 350 meters. Accounting for the weight and imbalance from the firecrackers, and of course, my own inexperience in using a bow.....

That's at most 200 meters.

The enclosure is about thirty meters across. So that's 170 meters.

An average person can cross 100 meters in 14 seconds. So 170 meters gives 23 seconds one way, and about another ten before they can see me on the way back.

More than enough time to run down and jump in to the fountain.

Alright. Alright. I assured myself.

Hiding my backpack in the shrubbery beside me, I crawled to the side of the mound I was on, scanning the surroundings to find a suitable spot for a distraction.

I found it in a fountain some 150 meters away to the right. That should put them out of sight for a fair bit. Yup.

Let's do this.

Practice aiming at the fountain in the distance- because holding and aiming leisurely is a thing that only happens in the movies, since draw weights are no joke- I got a feel for the shot before I finally decided to give it a go.

Lighting the firecrackers, I drew the bowstring back and aimed the arrow in the distance, all in one smooth movement before-

Fwish!

I shot it.

One second, two seconds, three seconds. And then-

Boom!

A huge boom rang across the fountain in the distance, echoing through the whole area, drawing the attention of the mercenaries in the Fillory fountain.

"What was that?" I faintly heard one say.

"Let's find out. Come." The other replied before hurried footsteps tip-tapped into the distance.

Alright.

Time to go. I jumped to my feet, slipping the lighter into my pocket and the bow onto my back as I sprinted down the wide steps of the Fillorian amphitheatre and over the ledge.

Splash!

I jumped into the fountain and disappeared into its inky depths, with a big smile on my face.

Fillory, here I come!

___________________

And MC is finally through with the Neitherlands. Next time, Fillory and Further!

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