Gag Order

The doors of Himiko's palace slammed shut in absolute silence, the sudden stop of their momentum as unsatisfying and without closure as John's entire trip had now proven to be. John's body was so tense that it took him a few moments to even breathe, much less begin to move and look around.

The grounds surrounding the palace were every bit as still and silent as they had been when John was escorted there only a few moments ago. If anything it was even more pronounced now that Katricia was no longer accompanying him. The entire place gave John the disturbing sense that he was being watched, without even the physical or magical ability to comprehend those watching him...

"All this way... I came all this way, and all I got was a fucking hug and a note. I should pound on her door, scream at her for being so indifferent, but what good would it do? This Barrier has me so weak I'm not even sure if I can **** the door open, much less break it down. I'd just end up standing out here for days, until I gave up anyway or pissed her off enough for her to come **** me out. I'm not even a nuisance to someone like her, much less a threat. But still..."

John set his jaw and started to walk, slowly and forcefully, down the stairs and back toward the entrance to Himiko's domain.

"But I can still save the people I care about. And that's all that matters. Moira, Tricia, Etriyya, Kim, Mom, I won't let anyone hurt them. I'll die before I let those bastards hurt a single person in Springfield."

Despite the length of the staircase, John found himself at the bottom before he'd even realized exactly how lost in thought he was. Standing there at the bottom, John came face to face with the edge of the Barrier that surrounded Himiko's palace. It was just across the street, a black wall of void cutting off just before where the sidewalk would have begun on the other side of the street in the real world, and less than a hundred feet wider on either side than the actual manor and its surrounding grounds. Not sure how to proceed, John crossed the street and faced off against the black void.

"A Barrier this strong... there's no way I'll be able to escape it. Will Himiko let me out, or will she-"

John had intended to place his hand upon the edge to inspect it physically, but as his hand touched upon that inky blackness, it passed through absolutely effortlessly. John recoiled in surprise and found that his hand could not re-enter the Barrier, no matter how hard he pulled.

"Wait... of course. It's a defensive Barrier, one designed to protect and isolate Himiko's private domain," John thought quietly. "It isn't meant to trap victims, it's to repel and weaken attackers. Leaving is easy... getting in is hard. I probably only entered before because I was in a vehicle with some kind of seal or enchantment to be able to pass through..."

John was a bit hesitant to follow his hand into the void beyond, but at least he could still feel it, so he knew that passing through didn't simply result in destruction. Besides that, Himiko may not have been willing to assist or associate with him further, but she didn't want him dead yet... at least, that's what she claimed. If walking beyond the boundary of the Barrier would kill him, surely she would have warned him.

Still, John was hesitant at first as he stepped forward and pushed his face past the boundary of the Barrier, wondering what hellscape he might walk into. A great sigh escaped him as he took the plunge and found that once his eyes were past the border, he was staring at the relatively mundane streets of Los Angeles... or whatever suburb they were in now; it wasn't as if John knew the roads they'd travelled in that stuffy APC.

"I've never had to regenerate part of my head with Gamer's Body yet... can't say I was looking forward to testing it out. Would it even work inside a Barrier like that with spell suppression? I don't want to ever find out," John thought with a numb relief as he stepped all the way through the border of the Barrier.

You have exited the Nakamura Domain Barrier! All negative effects have been removed!

John was surprised that he didn't notice a particular feeling washing over him as his abilities fully returned. Perhaps it had something to do with his stats never being directly affected, but it did make the transition feel oddly uneventful. John stood for a moment, considering the streets around him.

Mundane – at least, seemingly mundane – men and women crossed the sidewalks around him at varying paces, some incredibly hastened and some almost leisurely. Most of them weren't looking at John, and those that did mostly glanced over him in an instant and then moved on. That lined up well with the "spell" that seemed to have fallen over the world, the one Etriyya had described so long ago that caused mundanes to ignore or explain away strange magical occurrences from the Abyss. John was quite sure that his arrival out of seemingly nowhere would have been noticed, yet it was as if he was any other loiterer who had simply been standing along the pathway all day.

After noticing his arrival's relatively lackluster effect on the passersby, John turned his attention to where Himiko's palace had resided within the Barrier he had just exited. Atop a modest hill sat a luxurious but comparatively miniscule home, one that looked like it could have been built or bought up by almost any mid-tier executive or Hollywood influencer. Even its property lines were noticeably diminished; the house actually barely had anything resembling a yard, with only a few meters separating it from its fence line, followed by similarly constructed homes. John wasn't sure if the other homes were occupied by mundane families or if they were shell homes constructed to provide Himiko's private Barrier with enough space to exist without risking intruders, and he had no reason to care or investigate further.

Instead, John focused himself on the task at hand – following his only current lead on a possible savior for his allies and all of Springfield.

Slowly, expectantly, John began to unfold the piece of paper that Himiko had given him. The instructions that she had insisted were specific, but uninformative. Each of the lines that had been written didn't seem to indicate a particular goal, but rather a set of coordinates. Furthermore, there were only three – all of them accompanied by an address. Two were local, and the third...

"An address in Paix, the supposedly ruined city... so there are only two steps to prepare," John noted as he glanced over the list. "Probably one to reunite me with Layla and Arista, and another to encounter this mercenary of hers... but which one is which?"

John didn't know enough about the town to guess based on an address what kind of neighborhood each of the written locations would lead him to, but a quick search on his phone pulled up the mundane neighborhoods at the very least. The first address was further away in what was surrounded by enough pawn shops and auto repair shops to make John raise an eyebrow, though the thought of a trodden down mundane neighborhood no longer posed even the slightest intimidation to him. The second was actually an intersection, a set of street corners located in something of a bustling downtown area, between entertainment and shopping districts

"No sense in wondering which is which... I'm to visit both, and by what Himiko said, the mercenary awaiting my arrival will either escort me to the secondary location if she's at the first or is already waiting for me at the second. She said to trust her and follow her instructions carefully. The only question is... how much do I actually trust her?"

The answer was as simple as it was disappointing – John trusted Himiko to an almost nonexistent extent, but his trust in her was only slightly greater than his belief in his own ability to overcome the Northern Ashes without her aid. Combined with the fact that she could have easily executed him during their meeting, John had no reason to believe that her instructions would lead him to any grisly fate. As with so many things since he had received that message from Tricia, John didn't like the way things were going, but he had little choice other than to pursue the path presented to him.

A selfish part of him wished he'd broken that drone a year ago, left it shattered and useless in the bowels of the mountains of his world. Almost nothing good had ever come from the mundane world or the Abyss. Everything he was truly thankful for, everything that improved his life, had come from the abilities granted to him by some higher power... or by the friendships he had made since receiving them. The friendships that were constantly being threatened, manipulated, or endangered by the corrupt forces of the Abyss.

"Focus, John. Find Layla and Arista first. Brooding over the sorry state of this world later," John urged himself, as he trudged along toward the first address presented to him. His smartphone led the way well enough, its navigation app the only source of guidance he had in the unfamiliar streets now surrounding him. The deep blue arrow led him along sidewalks and walkways, across intersections and elevated pedestrian bridges. During a particularly long stretch of walking in a straight line, John had enough time to minimize the GPS and look up the actual address.

"Weird... it's a storage facility. I guess that explains this #307 on the paper. I thought that was an apartment number, though..."

John ignored the strangeness of the instructions and the address for the moment. There was no point in guiding him to a trap because Himiko herself could have surely slaughtered him at her own leisure back at the palace. The worst he could expect was a trick or a false address... and he couldn't even convince himself there would be a reason for such foolishness. Himiko had no reason to waste his time as such; even if she chose to ally herself with one of his enemies for some unimaginable reason, her efforts would be better spent capturing or killing him than in sending him on a wild goose chase.

That measure of practicality was perfectly reasonable, totally understandable... and not nearly enough to keep John from finding every alternative he could to blindly following the instructions he had been given. Instead, once John was as sure as he could be that no one was following him, he immediately dialed Layla's number. Each repetition of the dial tone was like a stab directly to his heart... fortunately, it only repeated three times before John heard an unsettlingly familiar tone of breathing across the speaker.

"...A pleasure as always to speak with you."

John frowned openly at the sound of Arista's voice, level and calm as it may have been.

"Arista, why do you have Layla's phone? Where is she, is she okay?"

"You don't have to worry about her... she's fine, but Himiko's soldiers tied her up. They seemed to think that she posed a threat to me, and they did not listen when I insisted that she could do nothing unwanted no matter what freedom was allowed."

"Those words seem carefully picked," John noted, and if Arista could've seen him, he would have scowled. "More importantly, do you know where you are? I've been given an address by Himiko, and if you two are there, it would be more convenient for both of you to meet me on the way. Ask Layla to-"

"We were sealed in here... allegedly for our own protection," Arista responded, sighing. "The seal on the door seems to be a very powerful one. We are not allowed to leave, and I cannot dial this phone out, but your call is connecting with no issues. I don't know what other protections they have in place, but I'm guessing no matter what measures I take, we will be unable to leave until you arrive to free us."

"Fantastic... can you put Layla on the line?" John sighed.

"She's unfortunately unable to speak at the moment. Himiko's followers left me with her phone and otherwise disabled Layla almost entirely; the most she can manage right now is an angry glare at me," Arista informed him over the phone.

"And you expect me to believe that?" John asked, a hint of his true annoyance creeping into his voice.

"Believe it or don't, I don't actually care. If you think I'm lying, come punish me yourself," Arista said simply, her voice even and emotionless. "Kill me. End my life without mercy. Prove you cannot be fooled by my-"

John hung up without another word, sensing there wasn't much point in continuing to engage with Arista. Whether what she said was actually true or not, John had no way of finding out until he was reunited with Layla and Arista. Thankfully, their location wasn't far off at all by that point. John had spent so much time googling the address and dialing into Layla's line that he was already on the threshold of the building he'd been given the address to.

The storage unit itself was locked up, but only using mundane methods... John wasn't sure what "powerful seal" Arista had been referring to, but it seemed to only disable the door from the inside. As soon as John reached down and began to lift, the door slid open without a problem, revealing a... rather interesting sight.

Layla and Arista were both seated at a fold-up table in lawn chairs, hardly elegant accompaniments under the best of circumstances, much less in a moderately well-kept storage facility. What made things almost humorous was that Layla had been completely tied to her chair with full metal restraints, complete with a gag fitted over her mouth. She seemed unharmed, though completely unable to move anything except the very tips of her fingers.

"L-Layla? Arista, why is she tied up?"

"She tried to fight the guards when they let their guards down," Arista said, shaking her head. "They also seemed concerned that we would try to follow them to rescue you. They said for our own safety we were not to be seen further with them... then they locked the door. There was a spell on the inside of the roll-down door that kept it sealed until someone opened it from the outside, and her restraints were too powerful for me to undo. They also seem to be suppressing her mana."

"Interesting..." John muttered, glancing over Layla, who was smiling even through her restraints. He began to untie her gag as he continued to talk."Well, I'm happy to see you're okay, Layla. I'll get you untied, just one second... unless you'd rather stay like that. If that's what you're into, I'm not one to judge."

Layla blushed, but as John finally removed the gag and she stretched her jaw slightly, she managed a soft chuckle, turning her eyes to the sky and managing a quick reply.

"Well, I mean, I guess I'm not really in a position to stop you... why, is that something you're into?"

John quirked an eyebrow as he leaned down and began to undo the chains – they were all magically sealed, but the moment that his fingers touched them, the chains began to fall away, letting Layla once again freely move her limbs.

"Can't say that I've ever tried it," John said with a wry grin, "but I'll go ahead and free you, since this doesn't look like much of a place for experimentation."

"O-oh, of course not," Layla chuckled as she rubbed at her wrists and elbows where the chains around her arms had been rubbing. Was that a note of disappointment in her voice? "So... what exactly happened once we were separated?"

"Had a long talk that meant a whole lot of nothing," John explained. "Himiko apparently knew that we were coming to see her, but she put all this on just to tell me no. She told me about someone who might be able to help us, but the time is running down on how long Moira said we have until the deal is done and she's off to Europe. To be honest, I have no idea how far we can trust her intel, but she led me here and didn't hurt any of us while we were captive... and at this point, she's given me the best lead we have on someone who might be able to make a difference in this war. I'm going to head to the other address she provided."

"Any idea where that is?" Layla asked as she stepped free of the last of her restraints, slowly rubbing the blood flow back into her outer limbs.

"Not a clue... I had to look this place up on the way. Let me check this one ahead of time," John muttered, pulling up his phone's browser again. A few quick searches had the address pegged as a specific building this time, rather than just a street corner. John's confusion came when the building itself was what appeared to be a completely mundane, American-style buffet restaurant.

"Arista, if you know anything about this place, tell me now," John ordered, holding his phone in front of the enslaved mercenary. Arista's eyes reluctantly traveled over his smartphone before she offered a half-hearted shrug.

"Not a clue from the name or the description. Whatever's there, you're either getting pranked or I don't know what's associated with that mundane business," Arista offered.

"Nothing to do but to go, then... any objections?" John noted, looking over the two.

"John, perhaps... we could simply head home? I know that you want to help Moira, but this journey has proven more unpredictable and dangerous than you imagined. Would your time not be better spent helping your friends to find new homes, or at least alternatives to whatever they are planning?"

Layla's suggestion was a bit optimistic – especially for her – but not something John was entirely opposed to... but the mere thought of returning home made Etriyya's words roll through his head with the unwelcome **** of an off-the-rails train.

"They intend to **** Moira into an arranged marriage with one of their strongest knights. As with any Warden who takes a man into her bed, when she... consummates that union, her blessing will be passed onto him, and the Blessing will once again be under the thumb of the elders and leaders that have taken hold in the British Order."

"No," John said, his voice even and absolute. "That's not an option. I'm going to do everything I can to avoid that fate... Arista, follow me, now. Layla, you're as free as ever. If you want to go home, I-"

"I'm with you, John," Layla swore, somehow crossing the distance that had separated them in an instant to stand eagerly next to him. "I'm not backing down now."