This is the 3rd chapter for today. another 3 more to go.

Kiefer watched from the back of the brig as the cove, the port and the rest of his fleet drew further away by the second. There was a change in plans and instead of risking the entire fleet, Kiefer chose to only bring along 2 of the smaller brigs to make more time. The preparations were completed much faster and crew selection was done by midday.

After lunch in the city, Kiefer and his entourage boarded the 2 brigs and set off towards the sea. The crew on both ships comprised of high elves, Arachne girls and dwarves. The titans were all on the leading brig while 15 crew members sailed the 2nd brig not far behind. Only Feir remained behind to protect Mutatis from any possible threats while they were gone. A constant tail wind kept the sails bloated as both vessels tore through the waves and accelerated towards the cliff-side shores of Fiora.

Kiefer was quiet most of the trip, keeping to himself in his room and barely coming out to eat. Isana had seen this behaviour before and knew that he was up to something, so she informed the rest of the crew not to bother him while he was working. Rashael would try to strike up conversations from the other side of the door and would only receive silence as a reply.

Meanwhile, on the 2nd brig, a single human male out of all the demi-humans was hard at work, twiddling with some small curved pieces of metal. 4 days into the voyage and he was finally done. Laid out in a neat row in front of him were 7 curved circular mithril and orihalcom pieces, rounded and smoothed on one end. The man picked up one of them and placed the rounded end in his right ear while the circular body wrapped around the back of his ear.

There was a thin mana thread connecting the pieces together and it stayed connected no matter how far apart those pieces were. Giving one piece to an Arachne girl and another to a dwarf, the man shut his door and instructed the 2 of them to put the devices on, and go to the ends of the ship. Speaking softly, the human started up a conversation with the other 2 recipients, testing out the communication device.

After 4 days of boredom, Sher was the first to figure out what was really happening and disappeared from the first brig soon after. Naturally, Isana noticed Sher’s disappearance and followed suit, only to come back later and continue as if nothing changed. In her head, one sentence kept running through on a loop, “If you go back and help me, I’ll give you a reward.”

Rashael tried all sorts of things to annoy Kiefer, attempting to draw him out of his room. He could feel from his mana sense that Kiefer had finally left his room and was on the bow of the brig. Pulling out his armour, Rashael showcased the modifications he did to it while on the boat. There were small crystals embedded around the collar and down each side. More runes were carved on the inside to reduce the weight of the armour. He had also added the burst runes to the front of the armour to enable him to dash backwards without having to turn around.

Rashael knew how much it would annoy Kiefer to have him watch his own creations meddled with. However, Kiefer showed no visible reaction, just staring at the armour as if it was some strange object, then ignoring Rashael and returning to gaze out into the ocean.

“He’s only pretending to not be pissed. I know he’s burning on the inside. I won’t let his lack of reaction get to me. He’s just trying to annoy me like we also do to each other.” Rashael thought to himself as he returned to his room scowling, trying to reason with himself.

Spying on him from around the cabin, Isana chuckled, and then quickly returned to her room. “You know, doing this kind of reminds me of when we used to fight with each other to stave our boredom. If we had known how fun it would be to pick on each other, Luna’s moon would still probably be full.” Isana spoke softly, a red and silver device hanging from her ear.

“Yes well it has its downsides. Eventually someone blows up, so you gotta know when to stop and apologise. I doubt you titans have ever apologised for anything. Your pride would not allow it. Putting that aside, tell me his reactions. I want to know if my prank is working.” Kiefer’s voice rang out in Isana’s ear from the coms device he had given her.

“He’s pissed alright. He may be trying to hide it, but I can see the scowl on his face that says he’s bothered by Feir’s lack of reaction. He still hasn’t figured out that he’s being pranked. I’m quite surprised Feir is even able to mimic his target’s mana signature.” Isana whispered back, covering part of her mouth with her smooth hands as she hunched over on her bed.

“Okay, now give Feir one of those coms devices that I passed to you. I want to make sure Ras sees it. When Feir refuses to give it to Ras to investigate, I’m sure he’ll be even more annoyed. I’ve also instructed Sher to return to Feir’s side and pretend he is me. If not for her, you would not have known either, so I want to keep this a secret.” Kiefer spoke back, like a true troll.

Just as he said, Sher returned within minutes and hung out on Isana’s head, occasionally flitting between Isana and Feir. Isana passed Sher one of the coms devices and had her deliver it to Feir, who put it on immediately. Almost instantly, Feir began to be bombarded with questions by Rashael the moment he saw the metallic piece.

“Hey. What’s that on your ear? Is that what you’ve been working on?” Rashael asked, only to be greeted with an empty stare. Kiefer ignored him and started to walk towards the dining room.

“Can I see it? Why won’t you tell me what it does? Does it enhance your hearing? Why would you need to put it on?” Rashael did not rest, following Kiefer, and clearly annoyed at being ignored. Seeing that he could not get a response from Kiefer, Rashael returned to his room, devising a plan like a thief, unfitting of a titan.

Later that night, Rashael slowly crept to the front of Kiefer’s door and took out a silver knife from inside his long white sleeve. With the knife, He silently carved a rune on the wooden door frame to was meant to eliminate all sounds that came from the door. With the rune completed in 10 minutes, he then took out a chisel and hammer and began chipping away at the wood around the door handle.

With each hit on the chisel, the door shook, and made a muffled ‘whoomp’ sound, which was masked by the sound of the waves hitting the ship’s hull. Rashael worked tirelessly, determined to get his hands on Kiefer’s new toy and investigate it, hopefully giving him ideas on how to modify it and give him the one-up on Kiefer in their little competition.

He did not care if others knew he was thieving around, all that mattered was he found was he was looking for. After a great deal of effort and time, Rashael finally marved away the wooden handle of the door which remained attached to the door frame as he swung the rest of the door open. There, he saw Kiefer sleeping in his bed, covered up with a blanket and facing away from the door.

With a quick glance, Rashael located what he wanted on the bedside table and quickly snatched the piece of circular metal before bolting back to his own room. The moment he left the room, Feir turned around and smiled, speaking into the coms device still attached to his ear. “Master, Rashael took the fake you gave me. Now he should be back in his room.”

“Good work Feir. Isana and Sher, I want you all to carefully watch his reaction next morning. Feir, be ready to be confronted in the morning by Rashael, make sure you take off your device. You can still communicate with me via telepathy.” Kiefer replied from the other ship, already smiling happily.

True enough, as Kiefer predicted, Rashael came storming through his already broken door in the morning, black bags under his eyes after spending an entire night studying a useless piece of metal. Feir got out of his bed and looked blankly at Rashael as he started rambling loudly.

“Can you just tell me what this is already!??!” Rashael yelled, holding up the fake coms device in his hand. “I spent the entire night trying to study it but after all that effort, it just seems like another piece of contorted metal for this. I know you won’t waste 4 days precious mithril being locked up just to produce thi-this stupid thing!”

Before Feir could speak, Isana appeared behind Rashael and shifted her long silver hair behind her ears, revealing an identical metallic device on her right ear. “This Rashael, is just an accessory. Kiefer made it for us so we would have a couple’s look.” Isana claimed, smiling at Feir.

Rashael slumped onto the ground, exhausted. “So… so you mean I’ve wasted all this time and energy, investigating something that is just a form of jewellery? Ha.. haha… I feel so stupid…” Rashael seemed dejected, with an empty look in his eyes as he slowly dragged his feet back out the room.

Kiefer watched the whole scene play out from the other boat, enhancing his eyesight to make sure he did not miss a single thing. He smiled and called Sher back to his boat, with the intention of moving on to the next stage of his prank. Moments later Sher returned to Feir with 2 more coms devices for him to pass to Luna and Fiora. With instructions streaming in from his coms, Feir gave Luna and Fiora each a coms device and specifically instructed them not to reveal it Rashael.

Luna and Fiora were confused, but did as Kiefer told them, still not realising that Feir was impersonating Kiefer. Whenever Kiefer spoke through the coms, they would think it was Feir who was talking to them from the same boat and saw no need to use the device if they were on the same vessel. Nevertheless, they listened to Kiefer instructions and kept quiet about it.

Just as Rashael recovered from his set back in the morning, he was greeted with yet another surprise. He saw his sisters Luna and Fiora walking around with the same metallic accessory around their ears. It did not make sense to him since Isana clearly said that it was a personal item only for Kiefer and her.

Using his mana sensing skill, he finally discovered the true purpose of the little circular metal. He sensed and thin miniscule thread of mana linking all the devices together and figured it must be a way to communicate with each other. Even more surprising was that there was one thread that led to the other boat.

Determined to investigate this to the bottom, Rashael flew over to the 2nd brig, following the mana thread and finally found the man responsible behind all this chaos in his recent life. There he was, laughing his guts out on the floor as he saw Rashael’s stunned face.

“Wait. How long have you been here? And if you are here, who’s that I sense on the other ship?” Rashael asked, confused that his mana sense clearly indicated Kiefer’s presence on the leading brig.

“Ahahahaha… haha… haaa… “ Kiefer finally stopped laughing, catching his breath before continuing. “That’s Feir. It’s his skill to mimic anybody perfectly. He even fooled you didn’t he? He’s going to be so useful in the battle against Drigor.” Kiefer explained while propping himself up against the table.

“So what is this … thing… that you’ve been tormenting me with the past few days?” Rashael dove straight to the point.

“I’m sure you already figured it out without me telling you. If not, you wouldn’t be standing here in front of me.” Kiefer replied wryly. “I’ll give you one, if you promise not to meddle with it.” Kiefer said while handing an actual working coms device to Rashael.

“No promises. Your work could always use improvements. I’m sure you will get a surprise when you return to Mutatis.” Rashael replied, snatching the device quickly from Kiefer’s hands while smiling, thinking about the schematics he changed back at the city.

Hooking the coms up to his ear, Rashael spoke out loud to the rest who were wearing the coms.

“Hello sisters. I finally got my hands on one of these things too.” (Rashael)

“Oh finally. Where are you now? Did Kiefer give one to you?” (Luna)

“Yes I finally tracked him down and received one. I’m on the other boat with him right now. I’ll be returning soon.” (Rashael)

“Huh? What do you mean you’re with Kiefer? He’s standing right in front of me now, still staring into the ocean.” (Fiora)

“Feir that’s enough. The whole prank is over. I’ll be returning soon.” (Kiefer)

At that, the Kiefer in front of Luna and Fiora was covered in a black mist, making them take a step back each. As the mist cleared, what stood in Kiefer’s place was a dog with grey fur and a silver tipped tail. The coms device still in its ear, the dog spoke out.

“Hello. My name is Feir. I’m sorry for tricking you but I was just following my master’s orders.” Feir said out loud, bowing his head in front of Luna and Fiora.

“And that, girls, is the 10th titan of Aioa.” Kiefer replied loudly, as Luna and Fiora both looked up to see a young man standing in the air next to Rashael.

With the whole Fiasco of the prank gone, Kiefer returned to the first brig and explained the use of the coms and the battle plans. Feir would be the main attraction in the battle and the distraction as well. The girls will be responsible for dragging the fight out long enough for Kiefer to figure out all or most of Drigor’s abilities. Rashael is to focus on recovery and rescue from the edge of the battlefield. A portal will be set up from the land to the boats where Rashael is to retreat with any injured teammates before healing them in the safety of the boat. Kiefer would be high up in the sky and he will appear on land only when Drigor is distracted of Feir gets tired. He would not use his magic until he knew Drigor’s limits and until then, him, Rashael and Kiefer form Feir would be running around with the lasers.They will communicate with each other at all times and with the support crew on the boat as well to coordinate their attacks.

Fiora and Feir were to be the only ones engaging Drigor directly while Isana was to slow down and attack Drigor from the sky. Luna was responsible for blinding Drigor and restricting his movements while Sher was to trap and redirect Drigor’s attacks. Feir would copy everybody’s skills one at a time and cast them in succession to confuse Drigor and the Kiefer would join the fight. Drigor would focus on Kiefer and Feir first for their betrayal and that’s what Kiefer was counting on to keep the girls safe.

With that in mind Kiefer watched the approaching storm over the horizon and retired for the night, revising the battle plan in his head over and over again.