Focus on defense

“H-hey! Where are you going?” Smith yells after you. “You can’t just leave me here!”

“Hide in the room where you found the potion,” you offer without breaking your stride or even looking back. “Don’t bother the doctor again. The lives he’s saving are the ones fighting to keep you safe. Remember that, and show a little gratitude when this is all over.” With those final words, you leap up the stairs. Your body is still sluggish, but it’s operable enough for you to move, at least. In another minute or two, the potion will have run its course and you should be able to at least fight using your {if@ sword = true}sword{elseif mace = true}mace{elseif spear = true}spear{endif}. Magic is out of the question now, though.

The situation on the main deck is loud and chaotic. Rain and wind rake the ship with reckless abandon, while a thin layer of eerie fog rolls along the surface of the deck, obscuring your footing. All around you are sailors squaring off with ghost pirates. There are roughly two ghosts for every living person fighting on the main deck. From what you can see, no more of them are appearing. If you can just outlast them, this should be over soon. You raise your enchanted {if@ sword = true}sword{elseif mace = true}mace{elseif spear = true}spear{endif} and steel your resolve. Let’s do this, you think as you leap into action.

Fighting just the one ghost downstairs was too tough, so you can’t risk taking any of them head-on. Instead, you move in to assist wherever you spot sailors who appear to be struggling with their opponents. By drawing the pirates’ attention to yourself and staying on the defensive, you give the sailors openings to turn the fight around. You go unscathed for about a minute before the damage starts coming in: a shove here, a minor cut there, the pain steadily adds up and slows you down. After about five minutes, you have to step back to catch your breath. As you’re scanning the battle and recovering, someone appears beside you. Someone with short, black hair and cat-like ears.

“Are you alright?” asks Lia, her eyes not leaving the ongoing battle. She stands at your side, though her stance is one ready to leap back into battle at a moment’s notice. Her outfit is in a sorry state, having caught the edge of hundreds of swords. Luckily, not many of those swords were able to draw blood, and she seems mostly just winded by this whole affair.

“I’ll live,” you say. “Where’s Blythe? Wasn’t she with you?”

“She got hurt pretty bad,” she says. “There was no space in the doctor’s room so I took her down to our hammocks. She was patching herself up when I left, but I don’t think she’ll be up for a while without your healing magic.”

“It’ll have to wait,” you say. If she’s stable, then you can’t afford to leave the fight just to run down to her. Not to mention it’ll be at least another couple hours before you have enough mana to use a heal spell without passing out. “Ready to finish this?”

You ready your {if@ sword = true}sword{elseif mace = true}mace{elseif spear = true}spear{endif} and glance over to your catkin ally. She gives a curt nod, and the two of you jump back into the fray. The flow of battle separates the two of you almost right away, but you still catch glimpses of Lia fighting from time to time. Whereas you’re choosing to fight defensively, Lia’s choosing the more aggressive option by jumping from enemy to enemy with quick surprise attacks. That style of combat seems totally natural for her: Lia’s speed and dexterity in battle is a sight to behold. It makes you wonder why, back in Evris, she was cleaning bedrooms at an inn rather than making bank as a rogue in a party of adventurers.

…

The last ghost fades away with a swipe of the second mate’s cutlass. Soon after the last shade falls, the storm clouds are left behind and the ship sails out into calmer waters. You and Lia spare no time in going down to check on Blythe, who you find sleeping splayed out on the floor of the lower deck. Her wounds are numerous and deep, but she seems to have treated them with the same first-aid techniques that she provided for you back in the labyrinth. You know the strength of those techniques from personal experience, so you’re sure she’ll be alright until you can heal her completely.

Sleeping on the floor won’t help her, though. You’re too exhausted to scoop her up into your arms, so you and Lia work together to hoist her into a hammock. Somehow, you manage not to wake her.

Soon after you and Lia have Blythe taken care of, a sailor comes down to the lower deck to perform a head count. As they pass through, they inform you that Captain Witterel will be ordering everyone able to stand to report to the main deck in three hours. Once they leave, both you and Lia make the unanimous decision to crawl into your own hammocks and try to sleep while you can.