Vignette 12 - The Josephus Gambit
On one particularly unassuming day, Kiran and Anna, along with their squad of Heroes, were making their escape from a troop of Emblian soldiers. This wasn't an ordinary troop, however, since it was the fearsome Curse Directive, led by one of the Kingdom of Embla's fiercest generals in Letizia, cousin to Veronica and Bruno. The verdant-clad Letizia herself, presently on her trusty steed, stood atop a hill overlooking the proceedings as she observed her troops chasing after the contingent of the Order of Heroes. Her brows furrowed as she saw one of their number conjure up a smokescreen to put some distance between them.
"Keep after them!" she ordered in a shout directed towards her troops. "You're gaining on them, don't let up!"
Meanwhile, the Heroes, having managed to lose their pursuers for the moment, hid in a wooded area to give themselves time to come up with a plan to deal with said pursuers. Aside from the aforementioned Kiran and Anna, the squad consisted of Realm-I's Julian and Lena; Realm-II's Seliph and his sister, Julia; Realm-III's Sue; Realm-VI's Kagero (who threw up the smokescreen in the first place); and three Garreg Mach students from Realm-X, namely Ashe and Dedue of the Blue Lion house and Bernadetta of the Black Eagle house. Bernadetta, being known as a particularly jumpy and fearful sort of girl, wasn't exactly taking the situation well.
"Anybody have plan?!" she asked in her trademark panic-filled voice.
"Still working on it!" Anna answered. "Though we're open to suggestions!"
The others soon threw out possible ideas, as Bernadetta found herself conversing with Ashe and Dedue, who despite their different houses shared a few things in common-mainly that they were frequent visitors to Garreg Mach's greenhouse, tending to whatever plants were in there with great expertise and care. It was at that moment that Ashe looked off in a certain direction.
"Hey, Bernie-see that over there?" he asked, pointing towards where he was looking.
Bernadetta followed his direction, squinted a bit, and soon saw what he'd been pointing towards. "No way-you don't think it's...?"
Soon the two of them, followed by Dedue, sped off towards a patch of plants in a small clearing. "Only one way to tell," Ashe hinted at before looking to his taller fellow Blue Lion. "Dedue, your nose knows best-is it...?"
Dedue took one of the plants in-hand (without uprooting it) and sniffed the leaves on it. "*Woof!*" he said with a mild wince. "This is the genuine article, all right."
Ashe's face brightened up at hearing this. "Then this means we might just have a way to keep them off our tail!"
The trio's fellow Heroes took notice of where'd they run off to and followed them over. "What do you guys think you're doing?" Kiran asked.
"Just in case you haven't noticed, this isn't exactly the time for picking flowers," Anna said.
"We aren't 'picking flowers'," Ashe said in turn. "We just found a perfect deterrent for the Emblians chasing us."
The other Heroes looked at the three Garreg Mach students, dumbfounded expressions on their faces.
"Um...exactly how are plants going to help us?" Julian asked.
"These aren't just ordinary plants," Bernadetta began to explain. "We just confirmed, this is a very uncommon species that grows in specific climates."
"Most commoners refer to it by another name," Dedue added. "I believe it was 'wacky weed'. When the leaves or buds of this plant are burned, the smoke they produce, once inhaled, induces a psycho-reactive effect that leaves a person utterly confused and prone to exhibiting varying forms of silly behavior. (It also temporarily increases one's appetite and causes a bit of short-term memory loss.)"
"And with the amount here in this clump," Ashe enthusiastically began to say, "we've got enough to pull off the legendary 'Josephus Gambit'!"
The other Heroes looked to each other, surprised and inquisitive over what they'd been told. "What exactly is this 'Josephus Gambit'?" Julia asked.
The still-enthusiastic Ashe, having devoured all manner of heroic tales both fictitious and non- for as long as he could remember, was all too eager to elaborate. "I read about it in a book I found in Castle Askr's library-in ancient times, a man by the name of Josephus was nearly forced into slavery, but with the help of a few friends, he was able to escape his captors and threw them off the trail using a technique that involved this plant."
"What technique?" Seliph asked.
"We'll show you," Bernadetta replied. "First, we need a long piece of paper."
Kagero quickly produced a roll from somewhere on her person. "Will this work?"
"Perfect!" Ashe said as he eagerly took the roll from her and began to unfurl it, while Dedue and Bernadetta quickly began plucking leaves and buds off the plants.
"Um...why do you have such a roll of paper like that?" Lena asked.
"It is how I store all my weapons," Kagero answered.
"Oh yeah-like in Naruto," Kiran said, only to find Kagero's hand swiftly covering his mouth, much to his surprise.
"*SHHHHH*" Kagero shushed with a free finger to her lips as she glared at the Summoner. "Do you want to get sued?!"
Unaware of this, Dedue and Bernadetta dumped their pickings onto the paper, and once done, Ashe rolled it closed, he and Dedue licking the edge of it to seal the tube up.
"All right, now we need to light it," Ashe said before looking to Julian. "Quick, hand me your flint!"
While the thief did so, Anna and Sue's ears perked at the sounds of galloping and footsteps in the distance. "Whatever you guys have planned, you'd better hurry!" Anna warned.
Dedue held the large tube as Ashe quickly struck Julian's flint together, which soon produced sparks that hit the outward end and began to burn it. "Not to worry, we're now armed thanks to our mighty joint effort!" Ashe declared as the group made their way out of the wooded area towards the direction of the approaching Emblians. Dedue held the smoking tube out towards them, while Bernadetta, holding a paper fan provided by Kagero, stood next to him. "All right Bernie," Ashe began to instruct. "Take a good look ahead-Embla's forces are coming right towards us. Take all that nervous energy you're known for, and fan! Fan like the wind!"
Bernadetta, upon seeing the rapidly-approaching Emblians, grew wide-eyed with fear and immediately panicked. "*EEEEEEEEEE!*" she shrieked before she began fervently fanning the smoke from the tube towards the soldiers.
"Julia, we'll need you to back Bernie up using some wind magic," Ashe said to the lavender-haired mage. "Can you do that?"
Julia nodded and took out a basic wind tome, which she opened and soon began to chant a spell that bolstered the gust being produced by Bernadetta's fanning.
At the head of the approaching Emblians, the troop leader shouted "Hurry, everyone! They're right where we want them!" The closer they got to the Heroes, however, the more they inhaled the smoke being directed at them. And the more they inhaled, the more they began to feel its particular...effects..."We've got to...got to...keep...movin'..." the troop leader said, his speech slowing with each minute as he and those under his command slowed in movement as well.
The Heroes that weren't the Garreg Mach trio watched, stunned and near-speechless. "It's working..." Lena marveled.
"It's working!" Ashe cheered.
Back with the Emblians, they were now truly, fully feeling the effects of the smoke. "We gotta stay loose, y'know?" the troop leader mused, his thoughts hazy. "Let it cool...let the coolness soak into our vertebrae..."
Sensing the opportunity, Anna immediately gave the order to fully retreat. "Now's our chance! Let's get while the getting's good!" With that, the Heroes immediately began running in the other direction, but not before Dedue left the tube on a mount and Julia cast a lingering breeze to keep the smoke trained on the Emblians. Speaking of, said Emblian troops soon stopped in a field and began staggering about, strange, goofy grins on their faces. "You go northward!" the troop leader ordered one pair before pointing to another, "You go southward! I'm gonna walk around here in a circle..." He soon did just that, while some of the other troops did the same in their own parts of the field.
While all that was going on, the Heroes, who again had managed to put more distance between them and their pursuers, breathed sighs of relief as they came upon an Askran checkpoint. As they walked towards it, conversation turned towards congratulating the Garreg Mach students for their ingenuity.
"By the way, I'm a bit curious," Lena started to ask, "has that technique been used for non-combative purposes?"
Bernadetta nodded quickly before answering. "Oh yeah-personally, I've made an incense with the plants. Really helps me when I'm super-stressed or on the verge of a panic attack."
"That explains why your room sometimes has that smell," Ashe noted.
"Um...would you please not tell anyone else from our world about it? Especially Mister Seteth?" Bernadetta nervously asked him before looking to the others. "It's...not exactly well-looked-upon, where we come from."
Sue, at that moment, chimed in. "Some of my tribe's elders have utilized a similar technique. Usually it is reserved for certain ceremonies."
"I believe Petra's people also use it in that manner," Dedue responded to her.
Meanwhile, back with the Emblians, the troops were still caught in the haze as they loitered about the field. "I'm gonna stay right here," the troop leader declared as he stepped onto one spot, before lumbering towards another. "Now I'm gonna move here..."
At one horse that was presently laying down, two soldiers, both female, rested against its side. "Hey-you care if it falls?" one of them asked.
"What?" her comrade replied confusedly.
"The Emblian Empire?"
"Pff-screw it."
The soldier who posed the question then proceeded to giggle, before being joined by her companion.
Letizia, who'd been following behind her troops, was perplexed and frustrated by the sight before her. "What the-what are my soldiers doing?! Why did they stop their pursuit?!" She then spurred her horse onward until she caught up with said soldiers and dismounted, storming towards the troop leader.
"Oh, hey there, general. What's shakin'?" the troop leader asked with a bit of a slur in his voice.
"Why did you stop chasing them?!" Letizia furiously demanded. "What are you even thinking?!" The troop leader nonchalantly shrugged, a goofy grin on still on his face. Letizia soon grabbed the front of his collar and started shaking him. "Have you all taken complete leave of your senses?! Are you purposefully trying to get yourselves stripped of all rank and privileges?! To get yourselves thrown in the dungeons?! Do you-?!" Before she could finish, some of the lingering smoke wafted over her as she inadvertently inhaled it. On doing so, her mood underwent something of a one-eighty, evidenced by the very beatific expression now on her face. "-Do you, like, wanna dance, man?" she asked, all fury gone from her voice. The troop leader airily nodded 'yes'. "Then let us GROOVETH!" she cried. A medieval-sounding version of Iron Butterfly's "Inna-Gadda-Da-Vida" then began to play in the background while Letizia and her soldiers soon fell into step, becoming enraptured by the beat, completely forgetting their mission in the process. For Emblian history, it would forever be regarded as a day of utter infamy.
**Author's Note(s)**
This won't be the only story where I use the term 'Josephus Gambit'. Where else will it turn up? You'll just have to wait and see...