Startup 100: Shipping

Cool wind blew across Naomi’s face, the captain’s magic saturating the air. She’d practically frozen when the boarding party had showed up, only Milo’s firm voice letting her aim and fire at Gobron along with half the rest of the crew. That elf woman had moved so fast, Naomi was sure she’d be bleeding out if she’d been the target instead, and here she was about to leap into the ocean where she’d be the obvious weak link.

Take a breath, Dame. It’s all well and good to keep perspective, but right now you need to focus.

Another voice joined Milo’s in the back of her head, this one lighter, with a manically cheerful edge.

Yes, Mistress! I agree! I will endeavor to assist as best I can!

Naomi did as the voices suggested. She trusted Milo, and though Ohbai was a bit odd he came highly recommended. Not as someone to bring to a fight, but highly recommended nevertheless. A good first choice for a second circle spirit, Milo had said. He was safe and kind, someone Milo trusted.

During the summoning, she’d seen Ohbai manifest as a small, bald, smiling man who was so obsequious that she couldn’t help but be suspicious. Even if he was genuine, he was so irritating she wasn’t sure if she’d ever summon him again.

Er… mistress, I notice that you are staring at the waters. Would you perhaps like a steed? It would be an honor and pleasure to fetch one for you.

What? I thought you summoned horses? They can swim?

Of course, mistress! It would be the utmost embarrassment for one of my stable to be incapable of the task of transport.

Beneath her, right next to the spot where Sosima had already dove into the water, the foam in the wake of the Enterprise collected and gathered into the shape of a horse, which trotted alongside the ship, ready to catch her.

Ok, maybe I’ll keep you around after all.

Oh thank you, Mistress! Please let me know if there is anything I should do for you. Filling your lungs with air should be no trouble at all.

Naomi took a deep breath in spite of that, and plunged into the water. The horse caught her, and carried her along. Her lungs filled with so much air that she needed to exhale a stream of bubbles that just kept coming.

••••••••••

I kept scanning the Magpie Prince through the spyglass, hoping to give my guys some warning the next time Nendra sent over a squad. Sandara fixed everyone up without much trouble; Jape and I had gotten hit the worst, each getting a small fracture she could heal with a flick of the wrist. We could manage fights like that all day, if that was the worst they had.

The problem was that the crew of the Magpie Prince probably could too. I saw Gobron strut up to Vorys, pushing a guy with a broken leg aside to show her a bloody scratch on his arm. A Tengu man with a bandanna then proceeded to lay Gobron out and point at the injured members of the crew, who Vorys touched with an eerie grey mist that got them standing in a few moments.

Well shit. Jerry isn’t the only necromancer who moonlights as a healer. I guess she had to be good at something, given how awful she was at beetle ranching. Let’s see if we can switch things up.

“Someone bring up the rust buckets,” I said, “It’s high time they start earning their keep.”

I winced a little at the thought of the junk golems getting destroyed in the fight, but given that the only buyer Linu had found for Mr. Rust lowballed her on the price they weren’t quite the goldmine I’d hoped for. The virtues they did have was that they were stronger, deadlier, and more disposable than my crew. They could self repair with whatever bits of tarnished and rusted metal we found lying around, and probably wouldn’t be destroyed to the point of extinguishing their elemental spark by anything short of dedicated effort the rest of my crew would object to.

I trusted Filli with both of the control talismans, mostly because I knew that she’d probably be the last woman standing on the whole crew if worst came to worst. Those three would serve as the main welcoming committee, and had the kind of stamina and durability needed to completely shut down the Imp’s Gambit as a pure attrition strategy.

Across the distance, Nendra’s team was assembling another team. The Tengu who punched Gobron looked right at me and saluted with his sword. Then he vanished, and reappeared with his team on the poopdeck.

••••••••••

Naomi clung to the horse, the salty seawater stinging her eyes as it caught up to Sosima and Ve’ra. Their targets were thankfully easy to pick out, but only because they were so absurdly large. They looked like something midway between a snake and a tornado, with large iron collars securing them to the Magpie Prince. Each was bigger than one of the lifeboats on the Enterprise, straining against the chains to pull the Prince ever closer to Naomi’s home.

Ah! Those poor elementals. Simply summoned when needed and allowed to roam otherwise? Shameful, truly shameful.

Naomi shook her head, dismissing Ohbai’s chatter, and aimed the captain’s revolver at the nearest one. She tried to take a steadying breath, which only filled her mouth with seawater that was quickly expelled by the stream of bubbles, and pulled the trigger.

The bullet she shot from the gun trailed a bolt of lightning, and released a clap of thunder as well. The thin, blinding flash struck true against the elemental’s core, to very little effect that Naomi could see. The snake thing recoiled, but was back to pulling the ship within seconds.

Ah! Not only summoned but bound to the ship’s commands. They shall pull until they are unable to do so, Mistress. It is the nature of their service. They will need to be banished.

Sosima looked back at Naomi, and held up a hand. She hadn’t learned many drow signs, but given that none of them could speak aquan it was their best option for communicating underwater.

“I go.” She signed, then pointed at the giant elemental, Ve’ra, and Naomi each in turn. “That. You go. You stay. Watch. Help. Left.”

The gillwoman, spear in hand trailing the dark power of the void, rushed down towards the gigantic creature Naomi had shot, the one on the left, spear point first. The captain’s shadow lunged down as well, her hands growing into rending claws, leaving Naomi behind, the elemental horse trotting through the water beneath her.

Despite the gun, Naomi couldn’t hope to do as much harm to such behemoths as Sosima. With how little an effect her first shot had, she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to put it down even with all the ammo she’d brought. It’s not like these things had blood to lose. Even so, she had no intention of sitting around and watching the others handle the situation. She leveled her gun at the giant snake again, carefully taking aim.

Dame!

Mistress, you must pay more attention!

Time stopped, and Naomi’s neck turned to look above herself. She saw two sharks, slate gray with huge, snapping jaws, hanging immobile in the water near the surface. They were angled straight for her with deadly intent.

Worry not, I have a solution.

Naomi’s entire body disintegrated into bubbles, then reformed a few dozen feet away, safely out of the sharks path.

“What do you think you’re doing, man!” Milo thundered, “I told you not to overstep! She’s sensitive about this sort of thing!”

Only assisting! She may now dispatch them at her leisure.

You sit down and shut up! We can discuss this later!

Naomi regained control of her body and found herself trying to take a deep breath, trying to steady herself, trying to focus and deal with the situation at hand. She could hear Milo yelling at Ohbai in the back of her head, but all she could think was that she couldn’t take a breath because her lungs were already full.

I don’t own my lungs!

The sharks seemed to be moving in slow motion, lunging first towards where Naomi had been, ripping apart the horse she’d left behind, and then swimming down to where the other two were slashing away at the huge elemental’s flanks. Sosima turned away from the elemental to meet them, quickly dispatching one with a jab of her spear. She narrowly spun away from other shark’s jaws, beating it on the side of the head with the butt of her spear. By the time both sharks had exploded into clouds of black ash, the ship and elementals both had swum more than a hundred feet beyond Sosima’s reach.

Naomi felt a rough, calloused hand holding hers.

Dame! We need to move! Those aren’t normal sharks, and they aren’t alone. Look up. We’re not taking over, so you need to do it yourself!

Naomi obeyed, angling her head towards the surface, where another three nearly identical sharks splashed into the water.

I think they’re summoned, Mistress. Probably someone wants to stop you ladies from what you’re doing down here. Can you hit them, or do I need to help?

Another horse formed from the waters next to Naomi, nickering and pressing its nose against her side. She stroked its mane, almost without thinking, and finally calmed down a little bit. Enough to actually hear what Milo was saying.

Right. Right.

Her hands were steady, far steadier than they should be. That was fine. That was Milo. He had permission. He would stop if she asked him to. She knew he would. She still stared at her hands on the gun for long moments, the sharks slowly creeping through the water as she did. Then she took aim, and fired.

A bolt of lightning flashed directly past the trio swimming past her, and abruptly all three sharks reoriented towards Naomi.

Well that’s one way of doing it. Ohbai, can you manage the horse?

The horse swooped down between Naomi’s legs, pushing up her skirts and pulling her away backwards. With a wall of gnashing teeth swimming towards her, Naomi was fine with that. It wasn’t her own body.

She clung to the horse with her legs, and lined up another shot. The bolt went right into the shark’s mouth this time, and it exploded into a cloud of dark ash.

Another two fell into the water behind it, bringing the total up to four. Naomi’s hands reloaded.

••••••••••

Filli crouched, giving the crew an unobstructed view of the enemy. She didn’t know a lot about teleportation, but everyone else seemed pretty sure they’d appear on the stern and that was good enough for Filli. She kept her legs tense, coiled like springs to pounce.

When six enemies appeared in front of her, she waited a fraction of a second for a barrage of quarrels and bullets to fly over her head, taking in the enemies. One black bird man, like the twins but a bit taller and more serious; one long sword, held steady. Four humans with tanned skin and dark, oddly shaped eyes, each armed with short, curved swords. Two of them had fluffy red tails. Xenobia.

Xenobia was the only known factor. She was a drow mage breaker like Dovnu, and thus a legitimate threat to Emrys. She was also the only one present who had ever used Filli as training equipment.

Filli wanted to know how well she’d do when Filli was allowed to fight back.

She set the two golems the task of containing the other five, and lunged for Xenobia. The drow bitch was quick enough to avoid being grabbed by the waist, and flicked her blade out to cut Filli’s forearm. She cut something important, probably, since Filli’s hand went limp, but it wasn’t a big deal. It was fixed almost immediately, and Filli took the opportunity to use her off hand to punch Xenobia in the face. She dodged most of the blow, so it wasn’t her skull, but the real target had always been her lenses.

The blue haired elf screwed up her eyes involuntarily in the bright sunlight, and Filli’s newly repaired main hand rammed into her ribs. She crumpled to the deck, and for a moment her life was in real danger. It would have been so easy to crush her head like an egg. A single thought made her pause.

Emrys wouldn’t like that.

A second thought actually stopped her.

Why am I not being flanked?

Filli turned and saw that the golems were very diligently fighting exactly two of the other boarders, who were focused almost exclusively on dodging the powerful but clumsy blows. The other three had rushed directly past her towards the center of the ship. The twins and Jape were already bleeding on the deck, frost forming around their wounds. The gunnery crew had scattered away from the mortars, which one of the two humans was bashing with a hammer.

Syl and Cog were each standing over a bleeding invader, but the last of them, the Tengu man, was closing in on Sandara. He leapt into the air, his blade trailing white mist, and brought it down directly into Sandara’s neck.

••••••••••

My heart nearly stopped when the Tengu, apparently Captain Hyrix Snowfeather, struck Sandara with a blow that carried all of his weight and a burst of blazing red evocation that poured out of his blade and into her. I’d been trying, with no success, to hit the guy with frost blasts, but he deflected the energy beams with a twirl of his blade and a flash of green abjuration.

Hyrix Snowfeather has critically hit Sandara with Yuki-Onna strike! 18 slashing damage, 31 cold damage!

Sandara has taken a lethal blow

My mouth went dry reading those words, so similar to a time a few months back. That was more HP than she had, enough damage to knock her out cold. He could finish her off easily, and if he was willing to fully commit that was almost certainly his plan.

Then a flash of pink light flared from between Sandara’s breasts, releasing a pulse of radiance that washed over my crew. Hyrix’s arm jammed as the blow meant to behead my friend was stopped and repelled by divine force.

The sword was pushed out of Sandara’s neck, leaving behind a large bruise as the wound itself closed. He twisted in the air and landed in a crouch, one hand on the deck and blade raised defensively.

The Pearl of the Laughing Healer triggered!

Sandara has reflexively channeled positive energy!

Sandara has recovered 19 hp

Jape has recovered 19 hp

Sora has recovered 19 hp

Kiko has recovered 19 hp

Sandara let out a wet cough, then grinned at the man.

“Not a bad attempt.” She said, “Piss poor luck, though. My goddess likes me.”