Petrified of the boy's actions. The surviving half were death stricken to where they were.
None wanted to move.
A guy prayed under his breath, "Oh, lords of the seas, save me. Save me and I will always put lilies in the stream forever!"
Another had a different whisper, "devils walk among the living…devils."
Was Naph a devil? He didn't consider himself as such for he wasn't schooled in the philosophies of man.
His recent intent driven thought invoked cata gave him an idea. "How about the rest of you line up nicely?" His dry humour whipped.
One on the right literally followed it word to word.
Their logic? 'Who would not?! The guy is a monster! Maybe a human caestre!' They consoled themself.
Naph liked it, so he drove his intent into his next thought invoked 'Cata' at the one who hid himself behind another.
The one in the path wasn't affected that much. They felt a little nauseous but that was the same as his normal thought invocations.
Target of his intent however, coughed out.
He kept coughing and coughing, drying his throat out. Until he collapsed down silently.
"That's weird? Why no sound for the coughs and the fall?" Naph considered the implications.
Another down. The one in the middle had her terror tolerance driven high.
She couldn't handle it much and in succession attempted to flail a dagger at the boy.
Naph hit her with a different variation of cata. He spoke, "Ca". Then followed it with intent at the lady while simultaneously thinking 'ta'.
The lady's flailing arms flailed except she was picked up and then slammed back into the wall. What picked her up and threw her? Naph didn't see. Nor the others did.
Naph asked them, "Did you guys see anything?" He was genuinely curious how many were keeping track.
The surviving six all shook their heads.
"Useless bunch."
Whether the lady was alive Naph didn't check. Her neck crooked enough to not question it.
He chose to think 'ca' with intent at two more, and followed it with voiced out, "ta".
Nothing seemed to happen at first to the two targeted men. One turned his head, only to suddenly vaporize into dust.
"How?" Naph's question shook the other one which only fell back.
This guy rather than vaporizing had his head dismembered and reattached together.
His eyebrow rose in confusion to the effect, Naph's probing hadn't told him much. Four remained.
The first one to get hit was hit with the combination of simple 'ca' thought out followed with a spoken "ta". Nothing happened to the man, he was relieved.
The man had a hope lit up.
Charging forward to attack, he reached close to Naph in two seconds. Naph had let him, he still remembered the last time he used the combo.
And he hit the man on his dagger-wielding right hand with the butt of Naph's knife. The man's right arm vanished in a red mist.
"Similar. Alright." Naph understood this effect's combination.
The hope within the man had died with his lungs also missing, and Naph saw the hollow cavity inside as the man fell forward.
Nodding to the result.
He turned to the remaining two. It was time to use his most recently acquired trick.
Naph thought invoked 'cata' with intent on the two.
For couple of moments both the remaining survivors stayed still staring at Naph. But the ferry had moved from its location in that instant.
And that resulted in change imperceptible to the three, but Naph had taken that into account. 'Last one I used this on flew back in the direction opposite the ferry's advance', he re-noted to himself.
And he saw the effect at full capacity. Both the men flew back at the same speed as the ferry out of the section assorted to the wagons and rides. They were held up by something unknown while flying backwards.
Vanishing beyond the open exterior at the end the men fell over the ferry. Naph didn't concern whether they did die. He now knew of his combinations effects and confirmed a few.
"Time to rake in the bounty then!" He clapped to the assortment of his dead audience.
"How was it Bulwark? Did you like it?" He glanced at her as he began checking each of the bodies for things that could be valuable.
"Hmm, tarna notes. Check. An average dagger. Check." He tossed them towards the ride.
Wallets, daggers, four flintlock guns and bullet casings slid to his ride.
"Hmm, would the combinations work on objects?" He considered thinking about how to lose all the bodies.
And thus began his practice of a simple combo of thought invoked 'ca' followed with a spoken "ta". Every hit vaporized the body parts in a crater-like formation.
After successfully practicing it on every dead body of his incident. He felt relieved he wasn't leaving behind a lot of problems.
"Huh, the only thing left is the two survivors. Let them fight whatever is holding them." He shook his shoulders in resignation on the situation.
Naph casted a glance over as he walked over to the ride to place every valuable he had collected from the bodies in to a bag.
The interesting objects from the bodies came especially from the shadow controller. He had several different kinds of totems he didn't quite know the names of.
Naph considered keeping them together to make sure he doesn't forget them, thus binding them inside a newspaper page. The very same one that held his tortillas earlier.
"Let the oils damage check them!" He murmured his joke.
Looking around the assorted section, only a hazy red mist and several wagons and vehicles will be found. The reason of the mist known among the living to Naph. And possibly the two survivors.
"Hmm, will I ever meet them again? Ah who knows but the two were so ordinary looking except didn't both have two different colored eyes?" He questioned his memory about the flying survivors.
Another whistle ran over the ferry, a lower pitched one.
"What's that for?" Naph looked out the only direction he could view the sea.
Two different shades of blue clashed together at the horizon, nothing in the sight from the back entrance for the gangplank 10's entry-exit gate.
Considering he couldn't leave Bulwark out among and neither leave his ride here, Naph walked to the compartment room allotted to him.
Room 1006.
"It does look alright, and the ride can fit in." His inspection of the door and the room revealed upon his inference, "I just have to pick and move Bulwark each time."
His room had two wall mounted foldable beds. A window with a latch, circular in design but fitted with enough bolts to hold the thick glass.
He began with folding the lower bed. The desk in the room was already folded to begin with.
Naph needed the lower space for placing the ride, he could sleep in the upper bed while Bulwark kept watch.
"Oh, she will love to keep a watch." Crackling with his jokes. "She may need the binoculars. It is called binoculars, right?"
The folded bed gave enough space in the room to let his ride in. His mind was tossing around ideas of how to move and keep the ride.
His ride being light enough that he himself could easily pull it out of a pit. But another part of his brain was probing the information he had learned from his recent battle.
There was but one tactic he hadn't used till now. More so a set of combinations.
His mind considered his ideas on the ride that faded and faded until one thought remained.
To use the original combination he had used to arrive near Bulwark.
He wondered if he does have enough of whatever is needed for all these techniques and combinations. Naph hadn't yet run into a problem where he was not able to do something.
"Uh, let's just try it once, just once." He called over his cowardice and let the moment take him forward. A bit reckless is what his yesterday's self might say.
But all his experiences in one day had created enough pent up energy within him to want to be a complete reckless fool. And thus Naph said it, the very combination he feared.
"Cata," awaiting something to happen Naph closed his eyes and held on his breath. Nothing did happen.
He wasn't in any kaleidoscopic space. Nothing blinded him with spinning colors, nor the voices were telling him what will happen next to the colors.
He considered again. This time more thoroughly on how to replicate the same effect.
And an idea hit him. Whenever he had thought invoked cata, a kaleidoscopic world does feel to come alive in an intangible manner around him. He could see it, just barely.
"What if that's needed first?" He whispered into the wind. Bulwark was a few metres away. He hoped he would arrive near her when he is done with the experiment.
So Naph thought invoked 'cata' and then repeated it aloud enough for him, "cata."
A kaleidoscopic space descended all around him, or was he taken into one. Then it ended in a split second, landing him back in the room on his rear.
The boy looked around, "hey! Why always throwing me down?" Noting that there was no crater, it confused him. But so was the case when he did arrive at the scene where Bulwark's headless body was.
He performed it again. This time, with intent driven thought invocation 'cata' and his intent was on Bulwark.
"Cata," he spoke.
Suddenly the world took him, a world made with spinning colors, distorted voices that spoke of what happens to each color, each structure, and everything around him. A true kaleidoscopic space.
And he was delivered as standing in front of his ride.
Naph's breath still within him. He didn't have his sweat streaking across his body creating cuts, not like the shadow controller.
But a difference was there. Naph felt it.
He was exhausted beyond recognition. He crashed down onto the front of the mechanical ride. Heaving, "huh, so that's what will happen. Huh, huh."