by A. J. Markam
“DOWN! DOWN!” Krug roared.
Stig and I hit the deck, as did the hunters and mages.
There was a BOOM in the distance – sound travels slower than light, after all –
And then all hell broke loose.
Cannonballs slammed into the Peregrine, punching through anything in their path.
Crashes filled the air, as did screams and fragments of wood.
Ever see the first battle scene in Master And Commander when the enemy ship fires at Russell Crowe’s crew?
It was sort of like that – chaos and destruction all around us.
“FIRE!” Krug roared, standing tall amidst the storm of shrapnel all around him.
The problem was, we were too far out for the hunters and mages to be effective – so we returned fire with our own cannons.
There was a deafening BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! all around us, both on the Peregrine and the other pirate ships. Smoke and the smell of burnt gunpowder filled the air.
“I don’t wanna stay here – go time, go time!” Stig shouted frantically.
“Let’s go!”
I summoned my magic carpet so that it was lying flat on the deck.
We rolled over on top of it –
It lifted into the air –
And then we cleared the side of the deck and plummeted straight down like a rollercoaster.
“AAAAH!” Stig screamed behind me, his arms in a toddler’s death grip around my neck. “I don’t like ‘go time’! I don’t LIKE ‘go time’!”
The ocean raced up towards us, the white-capped waves growing bigger by the second –
And then we pulled out of our dive and skimmed mere feet over the peaks.
Ocean spray speckled my face as we raced towards the Black Fleet.
High above us, Alaria and Meera did the same, their wings spread wide.
The Black Fleet was getting larger. Tiny miniatures turned into rowboats, then houses, then looming mountains.
And they began to fire their cannons again – this time, directly at us.
Giant plumes of spray shot up in our path as cannonballs blasted into the ocean.
I zoomed HARD to the right, avoiding the worst of the volleys.
Above us, Alaria and Meera wheeled and pivoted as the cannons targeted them, too.
I was underneath the Black Fleet now.
Suddenly, objects began to fall off the sides of the decks.
I had no idea what they were –
Until the first one exploded in a black plume of smoke.
POOM!
Depth charges!
They were dropping depth charges on us!
Some hit the water and sank before exploding, sending up geysers of foam –
But most exploded in the air above and around us.
POOM!
POOM!
POOM!
I zoomed back and forth, zigging and zagging, avoiding the explosions as best I could – but I could feel my lungs and guts vibrate with the shockwaves cracking through the air.
As soon as I was behind the Black Fleet’s ships, I pulled up into an 80-degree climb.
G-forces pulled the skin away from my face as we soared into the air.
“AAAAAH!” Stig screamed in terror.
Then I leveled off and swiveled around – and began our descent towards the enemy from above.
Their blackened decks were packed with skeletal sailors rushing around.
Their cannons were all pointed at the pirate ships, thank god, so we had a moment to catch our breath without imminent threat of destruction.
Several hundred feet away, Alaria was hurling fireballs as she swooped through the air.
The balls of flame hit the rotting sails, some of which caught fire.
A few cannons blasted up at her, but she dodged their attacks.
Meera stayed low, just beneath the level of the ships’ decks. She hacked at the hulls with her flaming sword – but the wood was already so rotten and pockmarked, I didn’t think it was doing any real damage.
I headed towards the Revenge. Though I couldn’t see Nix, I easily spotted Tarka in her green dress. She was at the steering wheel at the rear of the ship, yelling commands at the undead crew.
“Ready?!” I yelled at Stig as we swooped down at the Revenge.
“NO!” he screamed back.
“Too bad! GO!” I yelled as I zoomed down amongst the Revenge’s sails.
Despite being terrified, Stig followed the plan.
He jumped off my shoulders –
Plummeted through the air –
And hit the sails’ rigging.
From there he slid down a rope –
Dropped to the deck –
And began running around like a terrier on crack.
He darted in and out of the undead sailors’ legs.
They drew their cutlasses and swung at him –
Which just triggered his defensive powers.
Now he started teleporting all over the deck.
BAMF! BAMF! BAMF!
He was looking for Nix – as were the rest of us.
I swooped down six feet over the skeletons’ heads, just out of the reach of their swords, and strafed them with Soul Suck. I didn’t do much damage to any individual sailor, but I distracted and confused them, which was the point.
As I flew past, my gaze connected with Tarka’s for a brief moment – just a second where our eyes met.
I expected to see hatred – anger – rage –
But instead, she looked pale. Afraid. Nervous.
She shook her head ‘no,’ then jerked her head to the left like she was directing me elsewhere.
Was she telling me not to attack her?
Was she warning me away?
…or did she know I was looking for Nix, and she was telling me he wasn’t aboard the Revenge?
She had betrayed us to the Dungeon Guild back in Vos, but she hadn’t seemed gleeful about it at the time.
Was this her trying to make up for her previous treachery?
Or was she deceiving me all over again?
I didn’t have time to think, because suddenly I was past the Revenge and headed for a gigantic ship just a hundred feet away.
I turned my head to look at it –
And saw that I was headed towards an array of upward-pointing cannons.
They couldn’t fire outward because they would hit the Revenge –
But once I came closer, they could definitely fire up.
“Oh SHIT!” I yelled, and immediately plummeted down below the ship’s hull.
At which point they started dropping depth charges on me again.
POOM!
POOM!
POOM!
But this time around, I didn’t have to get Stig aboard the Revenge.
Instead, I pulled a trick out of Han Solo’s book in The Empire Strikes Back and got right up against the hull, close as a lamprey swimming alongside a shark.
The depth charges fell hundreds of feet and exploded harmlessly beneath me.
Now that I was able to take a breath, I paused for a moment and took stock of the battle.
One of the smaller pirate ships had taken too much damage. Its sails and engines were on fire, and the Black Fleet’s cannonballs had punched gaping holes in its hull.
I watched with dread as it plunged through the air and crashed into the sea, where it splintered into dozens of pieces. Most of them quickly sank; the others floated on the surface, still on fire.
The moment of the crash, five demon pirates suddenly greyed out on my menu – but I couldn’t resurrect them now. I would have to wait until I got back to safety on another pirate ship.
Despite the loss, our side seemed to be doing okay overall.
We weren’t exactly winning, but we weren’t getting slaughtered, either.
Not only that, I was feeling pretty smug about my clever hiding spot.
And then, of course, things immediately got worse.
An undead sailor appear
ed just a few yards away, hanging upside-down out of a jagged breach in the rotting hull.
His empty black eye sockets looked right at me as he leveled a flintlock pistol at my head.
I tried to dodge –
BANG!
A flash of fire, a puff of smoke, and a searing pain ripped through my right shoulder.
“AAAH!” I screamed as ‘300 Damage’ floated in front of me.
Before he had a chance to do anything else, I fired Soul Suck at his face.
It replenished some of the Health I’d lost, but it did nothing to actually hurt him. He was a Level 80, after all, and I was a mere 42.
Fuck him, then.
I revved the carpet forward –
Grabbed him right under his slimy, upside-down jaw –
And pulled down hard.
He jerked free of whatever had been holding him in place and tumbled down, down, down towards the waves a thousand feet below.
Turns out it wasn’t a ‘whatever’ that had been holding him, but a ‘whoever.’
Another skeleton appeared upside-down from the breach in the hull and swung a saber at me.
I ducked, zoomed the carpet around, grabbed him under his armpits and the rotting remains of his black pirate’s shirt –
And pulled down hard again.
He came free and tumbled down after his shipmate.
I steered the carpet away from the breach, just in case –
And that’s when the goddamn assholes began rappelling over the side of the ship.
A rope unfurled next to me, about 20 feet to my right.
Then another to my left.
Then another and another, until a dozen ropes were dangling both to my left and right.
At first I had no idea what the hell was going on –
Until skeletons slid down to the ends of the ropes.
They were all carrying flintlocks and cutlasses.
“Oh SHIT!” I yelled as they aimed at me –
And I sent the carpet into a dive.
Gunshots blasted above me, but none of them connected.
Of course, the depth charges started falling just a few seconds later.
POOM!
POOM!
POOM!
Time to get the fuck out of there.
Luckily, it was right about that time that the first pirate ships got close enough for the hunters and mages to attack.
The air above me filled with blue and green lightning bolts – all of it coming from the pirate ships.
PZZZZAT!
KZZZRRTCH!
Several skeletons tumbled from the ropes above me and splashed down into the sea.
Hunters’ arrows arced through the air like a flock of black birds. Most hit the enemy sailors above decks, but a few struck the rotting hull.
thup thup thup thup thup!
Suddenly I saw a small, familiar shape tumble from the side of the ship far above me.
Stig!
He wasn’t teleporting, though.
He just kept falling towards the ocean.
Was he stunned?
Unconscious?
I zoomed up at breakneck speed and caught him – but between my upward velocity and the momentum of his fall, it was like catching a cantaloupe somebody had lobbed off the roof of their two-story house.
“OOF,” I grunted as he slammed into my belly and we toppled backwards onto the carpet.
“Unhhhh,” he groaned.
“You alright?”
“No…”
“Did you see Nix on the Revenge?”
“No, boss… sorry…”
Maybe Tarka had been telling the truth when she shook her head.
“I’m gonna drop you off on another ship,” I said as I sped upwards through the air.
“Seriously?!”
“We have to find Nix before he can get to Alaria!”
“…man…” Stig grumbled.
As we climbed into the sky, I could see that one of the smaller pirate ships had pulled abreast of a Black Fleet vessel. It basically sideswiped the other ship, its hull grinding against the enemy’s.
Dozens of mobster warriors and paladins roared and jumped over the railing into the waiting throng of skeletons.
Rogues appeared out of thin air, stabbing undead sailors in the backs of their heads.
Swords clashed and hammers bashed skulls.
CLANG!
CRUNCH!
Some mobsters fell; others waded deeper into the fray.
Suddenly a winged shape appeared, startling the hell out of me.
Thank god it was red and black.
“Alaria!” I cried out happily. “Did you see Nix?!”
“No, not yet!”
“Where’s Meera?”
Alaria pointed behind us. “Over there!”
I saw a figure in shining armor swoop through the air above one of the biggest ships in the fleet –
And then a violet ray of light blasted up from the ship’s deck.
Nix!
“That’s him!” I shouted in glee –
Until the ray slammed into Meera.
I watched in horror, afraid it would strike her head –
But it only cut through one of her wings.
Only.
Sparks flew from her armor, and the wing fell away like a hand chopped off by an ax.
Her body began to plummet towards the ocean.
“Take Stig and get back to Krug!” I ordered as I tossed my imp at Alaria.
Stig flailed into her arms and hung onto her neck for dear life. “AAAAH!”
“What are you going to do?!” Alaria cried out.
“Save Meera!” I yelled as I went into a dive.
32
Meera spiraled down towards the waves, the air resistance from her remaining wing causing her to spin like a top as she fell.
I had learned enough from catching Stig to realize I had to be a lot more careful saving Meera. A ten-pound imp was a lot different from a hundred-pound woman wearing another 40 pounds of armor.
This time, though, I was headed in the same direction she was: down.
I approached from above and ignored the exploding depth charges all around us.
Forty feet above her… thirty feet… twenty feet…
But her flaming sword was still slashing through the air as she fell.
“STOP THE SWORD!” I screamed. “PUT IT OUT!”
She heard me, and the fiery blade retracted into the handle like a Jedi extinguishing his lightsaber.
The ocean was rushing up at us – only a couple hundred feet to impact – when I grabbed her around the waist and pulled out into a sloping dive.
Her body and armor slammed down on top of me – I was sure we were going to crash –
And then my magic carpet was skimming across the tops of the waves like a stone across a pond. Salt water blinded me until I pulled up above the water.
“AAAH!” Meera screamed, her eyes shut tight in agony.
I could see why. The stump of her wing was still burning. Orange cinders glowed amidst blackened flesh and charred feathers.
I pumped energy into her via Self-Sacrifice, which I could do because of her collar.
New growth suddenly pushed out of the charred remains and spread outwards.
It was like watching a crystal grow under a microscope – except with feathers.
Twenty seconds later her wing was good as new, but it was no longer protected by armor.
Not that the armor had done any good against Nix’s death ray.
I shuddered to think what it could do to a skull.
“You okay?” I asked Meera as she lay in my arms, the wind rushing past us.
“Yes – thank you,” she said tearfully as she hugged me.
“I got you,” I reassured her and zoomed up towards the Peregrine.
We wheeled around, and the carpet settled down onto the wooden deck.
Stig and Alaria were already there with Krug.
At the
bow of the ship, the hunters and mages were continuing their attack.
The air was filled with blasts of energy and hundreds of arrows.
Unlike before, though, the Black Fleet was only 400 feet away.
Both groups of ships were heading straight for each other in a deadly game of chicken – although half the smaller pirate ships had already come up alongside their Black Fleet counterparts.
I could see hundreds of mobsters and black skeletons in pitched battle on the decks of the enemy ships.
Meera stumbled off the carpet into Alaria’s open arms, and the two women wept as they embraced.
I resurrected all the pirates who had died so far in battle, and they reappeared in puffs of smoke around me. Unlike when they’d been killed by Nix days before, they had seen their deaths coming, and weren’t as freaked out when they came back.
“You saw the blast?” I shouted at Krug.
“Yes – it came from the dreadnought!”
I was assuming a dreadnought was a type of ship. Whatever the name, it was definitely the most imposing ship in the Black Fleet. It was right beside the Revenge, off to the left –
In the direction Tarka had been gesturing with her head.
So she had been telling the truth.
“That was Nix!” I shouted.
“I’m heading right for him!” Krug yelled.
Suddenly everything went to hell.
Literally.
A sparking circle a hundred feet in diameter opened in the air in front of the Black Fleet.
A Hell’s Pont portal.
Within its diameter, I could see a hellish wasteland of rock and flame –
And the bubbling cauldron of a volcano.
I was guessing I was looking at Acheron, one of the Seven Hells, and the source of what had destroyed Abaddon, the Kingdom of Frost, Fathmos, the fairies’ home, and Deek.
A blast of energy – not just molten lava, but actual energy – erupted through the portal.
The volcano must have been erupting upwards on Acheron, but the portal was sideways in our world, directing its energy like a gun –
Right at one of the pirate ships next to us.
KKKRRWWOOOOM!
A massive beam of fire and light engulfed the ship. All we could see was its vague outline in the inferno.
Scorching hot air like out of an oven rolled over us, even though we were hundreds of feet away.
KRFFOOOOSH!
Five pirate menu icons instantly went grey.
Chunks of the ship fell out of the energy beam’s path, the burning wood glowing red with embers.