Startup 102: Receiving

Three spirits floated around Naomi’s body, watching as it rode an elemental horse backwards through the ocean and guiding its movements. Water rushed across the body’s face, even as an endless stream of bubbles flowed from her mouth. A snapping school of four sharks pursued the body.

One of the spirits was a man with a dark coat and a thin black neckcloth, who spoke in a low, serious tone. He cursed under his breath as the last bullet in the body’s ammo pouch vanished into the revolver. They had four shots for four sharks. That wasn’t good math.

The second spirit was a small bald man in colorful garb, his face crestfallen. He had been forbidden from moving the body itself, so much of his magic was unavailable. He controlled the horse itself, and called upon much of his stable to act as distractions. One by one the parade horses formed temporary bodies from sea foam to distract the sharks, and now they were all exhausted after being forcefully banished. The bald man was silent. He’d been told that his words were as unwelcome as his magic.

The last spirit was a young woman, the owner of the body. She was the one who pulled the trigger when the gun was pointed at the sharks. She decided when the flash of lightning and the boom of thunder would end a creature. It was her choice. She didn’t need to remind herself of that quite so much once she’d taken a step back. It was practical. They were a team. None of them wanted the body dead, and all of them wanted the Enterprise safe.

Hitting a moving target was hard, but it was a fair bit less hard at less than ten feet. Naomi’s aim was also aided by the sharks’ tendency to swim in a straight line directly towards her. If she took her time, she could blow the brains out of one beast every several seconds. Another reason she needed to step back; it wasn’t Naomi facing down those monsters. She was just deciding when the body fired its gun.

Each shot was flawless. The sharks died as Naomi decided to kill them, bursting into clouds of black ash. No shots wasted. Naomi was proud of that.

I’ve gotten pretty good at this. Are you sure you aren’t helping?

No, Dame. This one’s all you, at this point. You won’t need me at all soon.

Don’t say that.

Magic helped you learn real quick, but I’m just a teacher. I’m supposed to be useless after a bit.

The last bullet left the gun, and the last shark exploded into a puff of smoke. Below, near the tail of the leviathan water elementals that refused to stop moving, Sosima was locked in combat with four or five sharks of her own. Two more were streaking towards Sosima, drawn by the scent of blood rising off of her like smoke.

Is there anything else we can do to help her?

Nothing from me unless you’ve got more ammo hidden away, Dame.

I… um…. Well, no, mistress. A thousand pardons.

The woman looked down, and saw that Ve’ra’s claws had vanished, the spell concluded. Naomi had little to offer, but little was all the help Sosima would get.

Well, we can at least be there to grab her if she goes down. Maybe we can distract a shark or two.

••••••••••

Filli put the golems on top of the stairs down to the main deck this time. She should have thought of it last time, but she was just a big stupid rat. It meant she was more likely to get surrounded, but now the only way past her would be past the golems or over a railing and down a seven foot drop from the poopdeck. Much better.

She firmly told the rest of the crew to stay back and provide ranged support, thankful that the language barrier meant nobody expected a real explanation. She couldn’t have explained why she didn’t want anyone else there. It was selfish. She wanted to prove that she could hold the line alone.

She stood ready, coiled like a spring, next to the locked steering wheel. When the enemy appeared, she gave them another cursory assessment. Gobron, Xenobia, three fairly normal folks who were probably just general crew, and a floating woman whose legs were bound together.

She didn’t know what to make of the floating woman, so she marked her as an unknown to be tracked and observed before engagement. The last three, two Tengu and a human, looked similar to the low priority targets in the last wave. To be engaged when convenient.

She wanted to hit Xenobia again and finish her this time, but decided that would be too predictable. Instead, she went for the little goblin man. She didn’t try to smash through his defensive shell in one blow. He was light, though, so she could easily lift him and spike him into the deck. If he hadn’t been struggling so much, it would have been head first. His field apparently had a rubbery quality, because he bounced off the deck and went careening off into the ocean.

Unfortunately, that meant she’d turned her back on Xenobia, who was easily enough of a fighter to take advantage. Filli felt a sharp pain just above her ankle and went tumbling to the deck. No matter, she was trained to fight on all fours. Filli whipped around, using the strength of her arm to make the turn quickly, and saw that Xenobia was already backing away rapidly. She bunched up her legs to lunge again, her tendons nearly healed enough to support her again. It was a perfect moment, the drow woman was ducking and dodging, focused on the barrage from the quarterdeck instead of Filli.

Another sting in her ankle, this one far more alarming. It wasn’t the sharp strike of a blade, but the burning sensation Filli knew only too well: acid. It didn't stop her healing, but it slowed it dramatically. Whenever Dovnu wanted to punish her with pain, an acid bath was always involved. She needed to put a stop to that, it was far more important than anything Xenobia might try.

She turned again, a half turn that would let her track the drow in the corner of her eye, and rolled so that the railing would be behind her. They were fighting intelligently enough that she couldn’t rely on pure aggression anymore, not with her ankle stalled in a barely functional state. She reoriented towards the kenku woman tossing a small bottle to the side, no doubt recently drained of acids.

Take out the easy targets first, take off the pressure. Wait, where’d the floating woman go?

Filli looked behind herself, half expecting the woman to be lunging at her from over the open water, but no such thing happened. Instead, she heard gunfire from belowdecks, where Rowe was working on the engine. She had no idea how exactly it happened, but she’d failed again. They’d gotten past her.

She didn’t have long to dwell on that. Instead, the human and the female tengu lunged at her from either side simultaneously. She managed to lay out the tengu with a single blow of her freakish fist, but the human’s sword bit deeply into her side. That wasn’t a big deal, or at least it wouldn’t have been, but then she looked down at the blade he left lodged into her ribcage. It glistened with some manner of iridescent liquid, and it burned all the way to her core.

She should have tried binding something this morning instead of wasting it on playing with ectoplasm. It seemed she needed all the help she could get. The very edges of her eyesight was getting fuzzy; she wasn’t used to actually losing this much blood. Usually her wounds closed too quickly to matter.

She distantly heard Sandara shouting something at her, but she couldn’t see her. Something about getting the golems out of the way? No. Then people could use the stairs. That might put someone in danger.

••••••••••

A few minutes earlier

“I need you to trust me. Make your move when they send their next team. That’ll be when you’re most able to get away with it, I think.” Emrys whispered into Jan’Nai’s ear. “I’ll get you out of there. I promise.”

Trust? Trust? You kill Mara, you leave me here for a month, and you’re asking for trust?

“Emrys, please.” Nendra said, collecting herself. “Give me the horn and turn yourself over, and I will graciously allow your ship to leave without you. You like your little escapes, don’t you?”

Jan’Nai almost refused. She almost, in a fit of pique, decided to go after Nendra instead. Whatever he had in mind, he’d need to back her then if he wanted to salvage any value. If Nendra died, he’d still win their stupid little game, no? She’d be doing him a favor.

“Daughter of the Matron,” Xenobia said, slowly rubbing her recently repaired temple. “I don’t think that we’re in that great a state to make demands. That stolen mutant hits pretty hard.”

“Then bring acid, obviously.” Nendra hissed. “Unless you have holy water available, Captain?”

“I’m afraid not.” Captain Snowfeather said, “What the hell is that thing and why wasn’t I told about it?”

Then again, he might just leave Jan’Nai to rot. Emrys was a Drow Noble, after all. Whether it was because she defied him, because she outlived her usefulness, or because he actually cared for this twisted bitch, Jan’Nai would have given him a perfect excuse. She couldn’t risk it. So she stood back and waited as another boarding team formed, planning to eliminate another target.

Vorys drudged up her new pet ghost, the one from the Saber’s Kiss that led them to this island to wait for Emrys. When the necromancer drew her out of the mirror she’d trapped her in, she took the form of a vaguely translucent human woman bound in black chains. She’d tried to talk Nendra out of pursuing the horns at first, but she’d rapidly given up on that. The chains could constrict on her ghostly flesh when she tried to talk back, and unlike Jan’Nai she had not been inured against pain.

I wonder what she would say, if I could speak to her? It might have been nice to have a companion, since we are in similar states. Hah, look at me, feeling sympathy for a surface woman. A dead one, no less.

They assembled the assault force, and thankfully it included Xenobia along with the ghost and Gobron. After all, they needed to send someone who could manage Emrys if he ended up fighting. Captain Snowfeather focused on managing his crew for the moment, returning to the poopdeck to make sure they were on course.

Jan’Nai wasn’t going to get a better chance. While everyone was looking away from her, in the moment the boarding crew vanished, she whispered under her breath.

“Hide my movements.”

An illusion settled around Jan’Nai, strangely comforting. She’d had nothing but faith and a hungry void within herself to assure her that anything at all would happen. She’d been unable to practice her magic under Nendra’s nose, but thankfully it felt enough like her old sorcery that she could use it confidently.

Of course, the nature of the magic was quite different. She’d been a diviner and an illusionist, a specialist in knowing what was around her and hiding her true form. She had only a very small amount of that, now.

“Accept this offering.” Jan’Nai whispered, rolling up her right sleeve.

The tiny symbol, the holy symbol of a patron she did not know, flared with pain that Jan’Nai could hardly feel anymore. Blood gushed out of it, spreading numbness up her arm.

“What are you doing?” Nendra said, no doubt noting the flaring aura of magic from Jan’nai’s spells.

Nendra narrowed her eyes and Jan’Nai felt a wave of pain, agonizing pain that would have disabled her completely a few months ago. The thing that had been planted in her soul to replace her sorcery pulsed, and drank in the agony like dry soil.

No going back now.

“Grant me the tool of my vengeance.” Jan’Nai intoned.

The blood running down Jan’Nai’s hand darkened and gathered in her palm. Over a few seconds, it all formed into an elegant rapier made of hardened, crystallized blood that crackled with dark energy. It felt hungry.

Jan’Nai rushed forward past Nendra, past Sinkitah, and buried her sword in the back of someone she felt nothing for at all. Lafloo’s body shuddered as the blade burst out of his chest, drinking lifeblood directly from his heart.

••••••••••

Jan’Nai cast Illusion of Calm

Jan’Nai cast Blood Money

Jan’Nai can now sacrifice her own blood to replicate spell components.

Jan’Nai cast Holy Ice Weapon

Jan’Nai has substituted 3 damage and 1 constitution damage to replicate 1 flask of Holy Water

Jan’Nai has created a rapier out of frozen blood.

Jan’Nai used Piercing Strike!

Critical Hit!

40 piercing damage. 8 cold damage

Well, time for me to hold up my end of the bargain.

I watched the combat log scroll past quickly. I was passing turn for the most part, mostly because of how awkward and uncomfortable my form of transport really was. The very second I saw the enemy team forming up for another boarding action, I’d turned myself invisible and started flying over to the Magpie Prince. By flying, I mean that Dierdre was flying while I held onto her calves like handlebars. I couldn’t afford to Frost Leap over, for fear of someone picking up on the very visible trail of flash frozen water vapor I left in my wake when I did that.

I also couldn’t afford to use energy leap to make my entrance; that would take up my action for the turn and I was already going to be operating on a tight timetable. I waited for Dierdre to get me into position over Jan’Nai and squeezed. I couldn’t just let go, momentum being what it was. In fact it took all of half a second to realize I needed her to reverse course and maintain pace with the ship for this to work.

I carefully picked a point in the initiative tracker and delayed my turn, putting myself just after Nendra. She was probably the person most likely to be able to throw a wrench in my plans, and if my turn came right after hers I’d be able to recover immediately before her allies could capitalize anything. As a backup, the next three people to take their turns after me would be Sinkitah, Dierdre, and Jan’Nai.

Sinkitah may be a wild card, but at least I’ll have my only allies there to help salvage the situation before Hyrix gets involved. I’m not gonna get a better setup than this on short notice.

I let go of Dierdre and dropped down onto the deck next to Jan’Nai and Snowfeather, who were in the middle of a rapid exchange of blows that she was quickly losing. I landed lightly, slammed my hand on the deck, and cast Blacklight. A sphere of oily darkness expanded out from the point I slapped, swallowing the entire front of the ship.

“Stop!” I shouted. “I come to parlay for the safe return of your men.”

No Lafloo, no teleports, no one maintaining the bounce back part of the spell. They’re on the Enterprise, now, and I wouldn’t bet on their chances.

That was enough to stop Hyrix at least, though he kept his blade steady. Jan’Nai scrambled away sightlessly, falling back against the railing and breathing heavily. The drow ladies panicked, plunged into a magically enhanced darkness that even they couldn’t see through. It was entirely possible they’d never been in a situation where they genuinely couldn’t see before. Sinkitah started fishing through her bag for something, which I took to be a bad sign, but I had my priorities.

“Captain Snowfeather!” Nendra yelled. “Detain him, now!”

She managed to dispel Blacklight with a burst of antimagic, as I suspected she would, but that just meant I had to waste my last fourth circle spell to set a new Blacklight up. She didn’t have another dispel handy; drow nobles only got one per day.

“Quiet, Miss. I’m going to hear him out, at least.” Snowfeather said in a rough, squawking voice. “What’s your price for my men, lad? I’ll want em back in one piece, you hear?”