On second thought, perhaps it wasn’t the safest of ideas to dispel the cantrip that gave him most of the edge so quickly. He could sense that in the sound the Dragoon made at the back of their throat. Knightly as they looked, the Dragoon was a pirate. One that was strong, quick, and brave enough to sucker punch him after their surrender could have flipped the table quickly or, at the very least, set them both back to square one.

A pirate that was smart enough, however, would have realised that doing so would have net them no tangible benefit whatsoever. Mikkel realised that he had found a smart enough pirate. He could respect that. It allowed him to ignore their pointless obstinacy in trying to convince him that their position was not so bad after all, for they made him resort to taking hostages to stop the fight.

To be fair, they were not wrong. And even if they were, he suspected that to retort that he did that really just to save both of them some time was in all probability not going to yield any productive result.

More than that, the conversation had shifted to much more interesting topics. For one, Mikkel was not the first ‘evil overlord’ that the Dragoon had met, which was a small revelation that, in all honesty, surprised him a lot less than he had expected it to.
But then the Dragoon kept on talking.

“Tycoon…” He repeated pensively – several centuries ago one would have used the word ‘mouthed’ instead. Then more and more words sauntered placidly downwards like bricks lowered by an invisible mason on the rammed-earth floor of his mind, and then on top of each other, until Mikkel began to recognise a shape. “Crystal. Warrior of Light. Rift? Oh, boy.”

His pace slowed to a halt. He then fell silent, which in the context was the skeletal equivalent of a gasp.

“You are from the same world as me,” he said. Yet, he had never heard of a pirate Dragoon becoming a Warrior of Light. Unless he couldn't have possibly heard of a pirate Dragoon becoming a Warrior of Light. “Although I suspect from very different points in time. The future, maybe. You, compared to me, I mean. I think I would have read about you somewhere if the opposite is true, eh? I see where you’re coming from though, the Void is a load of baloney for gullible schmucks is what I always say. Had to teach that to my own apprentice the hard way. Anyway, it all started from the Water Crystal for us. In case you don’t believe me, all I can say at the moment is that I spent a good chunk of my life in Ronka. Was it still around for you, by any chance? Ever dropped by the Library of the Ancients? Eh? If you can read, natch, and I mean this value-neutrally.”

“Okay, first of all let me tell you that I'm very disappointed you didn't say ‘parley,’” Mikkel said as the magic still crepitated in his fingers. He eyed the spear of the Dragoon and then the sea to his left. The ship was drawining nearer to the coast, the crew still unaware of the fact that he was holding them hostages. Soon enough he would be within range of their cannons.

And that, he realised, meant that he could no longer use them as a bargaining chip to get things over with quickly. Hostages who could shoot you with cannons, strictly speaking, could no longer be called hostages, and hostages being no longer hostages translated into the Dragoon losing their reason not to try to turn him into the world's worst shish kebab.

Mikkel wondered how much time he had before the Dragoon also realised that. It was not even a matter of being able to rub two braincells together: the moment the pirates opened fire, their little break was as good as over, and Mikkel would have had to divide his attention on two different fronts at the same time.

Now, the other little problem was that there was no way whatsoever he was going to give in to so many demands. Once upon a time he would have actually got quite incensed, and although he wasn't feeling much of anything in that exact moment, there were still such things as principles. Nay, ethics, even.

“Anyway,” he continued, “you sure try to drive a hard bargain for somebody in your situation. Here is my counterproposal:” The magic in his fingers flared darker. “I give those clods... Five minutes? Five minutes to get out. After that, I begin spring cleaning, and throw out everything that I don't want myself. And you stay put.”

He gave the ship a meaningful nod.

“It's either that or your men dine with the sharks tonight. You have ten seconds to give me an answer, or I'll make it for you. Still, where's the fun in that, now, eh?”

“Okay, hold it. We? You're also a pirate and you're mad I am fighting a rival crew? Is this like pirate NIMBY?” He searched his mental dictionary for an alternative acronym. He found one, only to discard it because, one had to face it, NIMUG – Not In My UnderGround – did not have quite the same ring to it. However: “I am not gonna lie, it feels kinda racist, the sheer lengths you are going to just to keep away the scary dark m–”

It began. As the bodies of those who were still alive gave their last twitches, the Dragoon leapt forward and charged at Mikkel with the spear leading the way. Or at least that is what Mikkel supposed had happened in the time frame between the Dragoon disappearing before his eyes and something hard and pointy cannoning into his armour a moment later, flinging him several yards back and down in the sand.

“-mage,” he concluded with a hiss as, not without some difficulty, he rose back to his feet. “What does yellow-bellied mean anyway? Is there like a fish that is literally called a yellow-bellied demon and you sea people use that as a form of wordplay?”

Either that, or he was facing somebody who would add compound adjectives to insults, which, as far as he was concerned, was the sign of a mind far more deranged than his own. You had to practice that kind of insult in advance. And before that, you had to pick that insult and sincerely believe it to be scathing...

...not that he had any right to talk, not after clumsily combining the spirited competitor “I am looking forward to a honourable or at least entertaining fight” with the old classic “I will molest you because I find these kerfuffles to be quite akin to intercourse” which, even in life, he could never manage to truly pull off, but even if he could, you never, ever mixed evil speeches. It was just that tacky.

Anyway, the Dragoon was, without a doubt, quite a bit stronger than the rest. He had taken worse in hits in his life, but he had also taken, as it were, quite a lot better far more often. One strike when he was distracted was also scarcely enough information, strong as it might have been. Considering that the Dragoon was standing right between him and his house-to-be, going all out was out of the question. He had to test them, and he had to get them in a better position.

“Oh, for crying out loud, I got derailed before I got to call you a racist for– You know what, whatever. I'll quip when I quip. Now, this I might as well have announced with a short letter at this point, but...”

It would not be entirely correct to say that Mikkel inhaled. It was not muscular strength that forced air into his nasal cavity so much as a mix of magic and force of habit. Nonetheless, for the sake of of brevity: Mikkel inhaled.

And then he exhaled – though once again this is narrative shorthand – and what he exhaled was a storm of large bubbles, which lunged at the Dragoon like a pack of wolves. It was a test, Mikkel repeated himself, and nothing else.

All that one needed to reach the Perigosa Jungle was a map, enough free time depending on where the point of departure was and-slash-or your means of transportation, and plenty of boredom. According to the rumours and the books that Mikkel he had found on the place, most of which either reported or happened to be the source of aforementioned rumours, surviving it was another pair of shoes entirely. He had read of both fauna and flora capable of "killing the unprepared traveller", which may or may not have meant that at least the fungi were safe, but Mikkel knew better than to expect some adventurers-slash-scholars to even know the difference. And then of course one had to ask what kind of danger flora presented to the average Joe, because one thing was the odd poisonous plant or fruit that could only harm you if you actively took a bite or inhaled the spores and you had a body that could be harmed by the poison, and another was, say, facing a Mad Oscar. Or Malboros, as they were more commonly known.

Mikkel saw the first fronds at dawn, as the first rays of sunlight swept over the expanse of the forest, after about a night's worth of flying. He descended until he was only inches away from the topmost leaves, dispelled the hang glider, hopped on the highest branch he could find, and began to work his way down, which he did quite fast at first, because he had missed the first branch, snapped the second, and barely managed to grab the third as he muttered a curse. It was, however, smoother sailing from the fourth onwards. In the end, he slid down a vine until he finally landed. Ignoring the mosquitoes, which over there were nearly as big as dragonflies, he disappeared in the undergrowth...

...Strewn along the path were corpses. Human ones, for the most part, but some came from people that he had only seen on Zephon. A few of them looked like humans who just happened to have pointier ears; others had curiously leporid features (once again it was most noticeable in the ear area, and Mikkel could not tell for the undeath of him how in the world looking like a giant rabbit helped one survive in a forest full of dangerous predators); a couple were even more beastly in appearance, and their faces were half-covered by cracked masks of wood and bone, stained with dried blood. Mikkel counted eleven in total, all between a few days and a week old. Their ribcages had been torn open, and the contents feasted upon first by the predator or predators that killed them, and then by ants and carrion birds. He concentrated and conceded the culprits, wherever they were, a whistle of admiration.

A wooden palisade marked the end of the path and the entrance of a jungleheart village. Mikkel entered it (was it even a word, "jungleheart"?) surprisingly unopposed. Although there were definitely a few locals on the lookout towers – the "children of the forest", as they called themselves – none were paying attention to him. Whatever it was they were focusing on, it was on higher ground than he was and it was quite more distant too. He shrugged, and walked on. The village was, on the whole, quite empty. Only in the plaza did he find a lone human woman.

“Well? Is the party here?” he asked as he placed on the ground what could have been best described as a sandwich of wooden planks. He was wearing, rather than his usual armour, a baggy red shirt that some bloke decided it was a good idea to decorate with large stylised white flowers, and short white trousers that did not cover anything past his knee. Replacing his usual boots were sandals so minimalistic in design that the only reason the soles were still under his feet was because of a couple of strings that Mikkel held between his toes. He added: “Here, take it. Not even sure why I have it. Or how, for that matter.”

And as soon as he said that, he offered the young woman a large glass filled with a red-orange liquid and, as a matter of fact, three ice cubes. Secured to the rim were an orange slice and a little paper umbrella. After that, he went back to the wooden sandwich, and unfolded it into a new shape. He took off his wide-brimmed straw hat and lay down on the foldable chaise.

“As long as you keep those arrows away from me, I promise you we'll get along great. Anyway, when does it start?”