Mirror Princess: A LitRPG Space Fantasy (Sword of Asteria Book 2)

by Eddie R. Hicks

  The three fae imperials clenched their weapons and raised them at her. She extended the Spellsword Saber in response, her sword hand fueled with rage.

  “Not her, you twits!” Remy yelled out.

  No additional harm came to Tempeste, and all hostile forces lowered their weapons. Remy was calling the shots now and nodded his head to Bordeaux’s corpse.

  “If you must take your anger out on someone, then do it to him.”

  Leafblade smiled. “Gladly.”

  Leafblade brought his greatsword up, then down on Bordeaux’s head, splitting it in half. He was going to permakill him. Tempeste dashed to Leafblade as he lifted his greatsword again and brought the enormous weapon into Bordeaux’s chest. He twisted the weapon and lifted it again as droplets of red rained. Tempeste was in range, and Bordeaux had not lost all his LP yet. She could still save him, something Tempeste wished she could have done for Guy. She slashed Leafblade and sliced deep into his torso. The lightning enchantment on her weapon’s edge induced the shock debuff and forced the Berserker to twitch—

  Boom.

  A surge of flames engulfed Tempeste, cast by one of the dark elf Mages. She was on fire. Rippling flames were eating away at her HP, searing her flesh, and inflicting her with too much pain to stand, let alone hold the Spellsword Saber. Tempeste rolled on the deck to put out the flames, screaming in agony. Leafblade recovered from the electrocution and resumed his executioner’s swing.

  Somewhere close by, Remy raged. “Stop! What did I fucking say? Tempeste is just misguided. Do not harm her any further!”

  The flames that had enveloped Tempeste subsided thanks to the soothing touch of a dark elf Cleric’s healing spell. The enemy had mended her wounds. Tempeste retrieved the fallen Spellsword Saber on the deck beside her, and stood to confront Leafblade . . .

  Then dropped to her knees.

  Leafblade had lowered himself to collect the soul crystal of a Gunner. Bordeaux’s body vaporized into a cloud of mist that blew away in the high-altitude winds.

  That was two men she failed to save. The hilt of the Spellsword Saber slipped from her shaking fingers when the emotions struck.

  “I am not misguided . . .” Tempeste spoke and angled her gaze to Remy. “That would be you!”

  “Do not fight me, Tempeste,” Remy sneered. “Once you see what I am planning, you shall come to understand.” He kneeled before Tempeste and lifted her chin up with the broad side of his index finger. “You and I can be together again when I am finished here,” Remy whispered. “I promise you; our marriage will continue as planned.”

  She gritted her teeth.

  “What shall we do with the rest?” A dark elf called to Remy. “The faun, human woman, and star-dweller elf?”

  “Kill them all,” Remy said. He stood from Tempeste and reached for the twin swords dangling on the left and right of his sword belt. “They will just become a complication once they learn about the Paladin’s fate.” Remy unsheathed his twin blades. “Eliminate the star-fae Rachael and her party, should they make it back to the Sirocco as well.”

  “Understood,” the dark elf said, then turned to his army of Spell Lancers and Mages. “You heard him.”

  “Leafblade,” Remy called out, drawing the fae to him. “You and your men can return to your ship. We will handle things from here.”

  “But the Paladin’s sword,” Leafblade said. “I have orders to—”

  “We shall take care of that, too,” Remy said with a crooked grin. “Go defend your ship Leafblade, just in case Rachael sends her party after it.”

  Leafblade called his soldiers to gather around him. Once they did, the invading fae buzzed their massive wings, jumped, and flew from the Sirocco’s deck, entering the skies. They flew to their airship in the distance. Tempeste assumed they lacked the flight time needed to attack Rachael’s party farther out.

  The dark elf intruders led a search and destroy mission to kill the last aeronauts and find where Kam, Henrietta, and Ulysses had retreated to. Tempeste had to find a means to reach them before the dark elves did. Those three were her last chance to take back the ship and make it a safe place for Rachael’s party to land on. Tempeste reached for the Spellsword Saber, grabbed it, and stood with it raised high. Remy saw Tempeste, but did not raise his blades to stop her.

  Remy used words instead.

  “Tempeste, please do not do this,” he muttered.

  She ran to him, ignoring his words.

  Remy raised his voice. “I am doing this for us! Do not ruin it! This is what we wished for when the corruption changed this world!”

  Tempeste ignored those words, too, as her charge brought her closer.

  She heard weapons drawing and a few arrows sink into the wooden deck. It was the sounds of Kam, Henrietta, and Ulysses’s last stand. Multiple dark elves wielding lances or casting tomes closed in on the group of three.

  Tempeste changed directions. She no longer ran to Remy. She ran across the deck, her boots echoing her desperation to help her friends. A cluster of dark elf Spell Lancers and Mages stood in Tempeste’s way. The enemy forces held way too many weapons poised to end her friends. She slashed through the blockade, pushing enemy forces to the deck, twirled to knock away a lance aimed for her throat, and followed up by casting Lightning. A bolt came down from the sky and shocked a Spell Lancer. As the Lancer trembled from the shock debuff, Tempeste performed a three folded strike so fast her Spellsword Saber looked like an explosion of purple lightning bolts, hitting her enemy so quickly the Spell Lancer’s HP went from 70 to 0 percent in six seconds.

  Tempeste’s assault drew the attention of the remaining dark elves, ready to share their wrath with her. They ambled back for a few, studying Tempeste and her blade rippling with lightning.

  “I thought Remy wanted this one alive?” A dark elf Mage said.

  “Fuck him,” said the Spell Lancer. “I do not hear him objecting now!”

  Another smirked. “That is because he cannot see us from here.”

  “Then let us do what we should have done with this bitch earlier!”

  The Mages consulted their tomes and hurled Icicles at Tempeste. She dove and rolled from them, came up, and stunned a second Mage mid-way into their spell chanting. To the side, Tempeste’s Spellsword Saber found its way into the bare chest of another Spell Lancer. Tempeste pulled the weapon out from the gore squirting cavity she put in his chest. She slashed in a horizontal motion, carved a red incision through his forehead, gained AP, then held it.

  Tempeste dove into the middle of Spell Lancers seconds away from using Become One with the Elements. She used Wide Cleave and the AP ability forced her to rotate with the Spellsword Saber, hitting all the Spell Lancers around her, paralyzing them with shock. No one changed into an elemental spirit.

  As the Spell Lancers recovered from their electrocution, Tempeste pulled an HP potion from her summoned Inventory screen, removed the wooden cork with her teeth, and drank the red liquid fast. She repeated with an MP potion.

  Tempeste | HP: 990/990 | MP: 214/300

  The potions left Tempeste refueled and ready for round two.

  She raced to the closest Mage, cut through their thin defense, severed their hand holding the tome, and sent it to the deck. She kicked the tome aside for good measure, cracked the Mage’s head open with her elbow, staggering them long enough for her to get behind them.

  A volley of Icicles shaped like ice daggers accelerated to Tempeste. The icy attack perforated the chest of the Mage she used as a shield.

  The Mage took no damage, likely because they were in the same party. Tempeste pushed her weapon through the Mage’s back, twisted it to remove the last of their HP, then ran to a third group, rushing toward her—a group led by her friends.

  Kam, Henrietta, and Ulysses came to Tempeste’s aid now that she had forced their attackers to focus on her. The four looked to the party of dark elves marching across the Sirocco’s deck and past the dead Tempeste left in her wake. The dark elf Spell Lance
rs idled to use Become One with the Elements.

  They had seconds to act.

  “Henrietta!” Tempeste shouted to her. “Do you have AP and the skill Whirling Slash learned?”

  “Yes!” The land-dweller human woman nodded as she held her Aspirant’s Splitter steady in her hands.

  “Fight with me then and use that skill once the Spell Lancers are in range!”

  Tempeste cast Elemental Weapon: Lightning to reapply the lightning enchantment. Together, she and Henrietta met the Spell Lancers. Two had transformed into fire spirits. The rest were in the process of changing. She hoped Henrietta had good gear and strength asteriarite for the assault. The human woman was level 12 and rank C.

  Once in range, Tempeste lunged for the fire spirit Spell Lancers, hoping the Spellsword Saber would stun them. It did not. Henrietta arrived and used Whirling Slash, twirled like a tornado with her Aspirant’s Splitter, striking every Spell Lancer who stood too close with one fell slash.

  Her targets fell backward like trees cut by a lumberjack. Only the two fire spirits and the Mages remained. The Mages cast Ice on Tempeste and Henrietta, conjuring a pillar of ice to spring up and freeze them. She felt her armor contract when the sudden cold hit. It was impossible to escape from that spell if a Mage had you in their sights.

  Thankfully, it did not inflict heavy damage, though it left Tempeste and Henrietta’s legs encased in ice with a notification pulsing ahead of her.

  Frozen

  You are temporarily frozen in ice and unable to move.

  And that only made it easier for the Mages to cast another spell, Icicle. The best the two women could do was lift their weapons up hoping to stop it.

  It did little to help, and Tempeste found herself sitting at 512 HP. Henrietta fell to 26 percent.

  Hellfire rained behind. The two fire spirits used Elemental Rain on Kam and Ulysses. Kam dashed to the side while keeping his Aspirant’s Lance steady. Ulysses narrowly escaped by rolling across the deck. The star-elf got up, then had to run again when the second rain of flames came down, creating a circular inferno on the deck. The Mages resumed their spell casting, this time aiming at Kam and Ulysses, forcing them to run from the incoming Icicles hurling toward them and through the flaming circles, expanding in size. The Mages gave Kam and Ulysses two options, stand still and get hit by Icicle, or pass through the flames created by Elemental Rain.

  Tempeste shut her eyes and cast Lightning after Lightning on the Mages until her MP ran out. It did not hit for much; their high intelligence gave them high magic defense. But, now and then, Tempeste would stun their spellcasting with shock. Her last spell cast stunned the last Mage, giving a pause to their icy barrage.

  “Ulysses, focus fire on the Mages!” Tempeste yelled. “Kam, take this chance to use Become One with the Elements.”

  They nodded. Ulysses found a spot on the deck, free of flames, nocked an arrow, and aimed at one of the Mages recovering from the electric shock. He put six arrows into their chest, killing them. He targeted the next Mage, and put another four through them. The Mage was dead before their body fell to the deck. Ulysses had AP and used Barrage, sending three arrows into the third Mage with one bowstring pull.

  Arrows through the knee crippled the remaining Mages and turned their escape into a slow limp. It gave Ulysses the freedom to deliver to those Mages the same treatment he gave the dead ones. The Mages tried to cast spells, but every single arrow Ulysses plunged into their face and arms prevented it.

  It took seconds for the whole assault to play out. The attack speed gifted to Ulysses by his high agility was incredible, so long as nobody was interfering with his bowstring pulls.

  Kam had transformed into his water spirit form, a faun made of water. He simply walked through the flames, his clear and bubbly body unaffected by the heat.

  Tempeste gave Kam a tip. “Fire is weak against water. Take advantage.”

  Kam did, and was on top of the two fire spirits. As a water spirit, the faun’s attacks inflicted water damage.

  The fire spirit’s HP fell, and once it hit zero, the dark elf Spell Lancer returned to its normal form and died. The second fire spirit canceled their spirit form and shifted back to their Spell Lancer form, ran backward while looking at Kam with fear in his eyes—

  They ran backward into Henrietta.

  Henrietta’s legs might have been frozen, but she could still swing the Aspirant’s Splitter. So she did, and cleaved the Spell Lancer from the rear, lunged a second time, scored a critical hit, and knocked them to the deck, right in front of Kam. The water spirit faun used the spell Overwhelming Hold and smothered the dark elf with his liquid body, drowning them in seconds.

  The flames behind dimmed and died off and released enough heat to melt the ice that froze Henrietta and Tempeste. The two Berserker women broke free and regrouped with Kam as his faun form turned to normal. Ulysses joined them from behind with an arrow nocked in his Marauder’s Bow just in case he missed a Mage.

  “What in Asteria’s name is goin’ on, lass?” Kam asked her.

  “Remy allowed the dark elves and fae to capture the ship,” Tempeste said, her gaze scanning the deck for threats. There were none in the area.

  “What?” Ulysses said, confused. “That makes no sense.”

  “He claims to have a plan to . . .” Tempeste looked at the deck with her sorrowful eyes. Remy had made it clear he did this for their relationship to blossom once again.

  Several soul crystals rolled across the deck and past the dead crew. Was this her fault? Was enlisting in the armed forces a mistake that drove Remy to betray the Lumière Kingdom?

  “A plan to?” Kam waved his hand in a tell-me-more way.

  Tempeste looked back up. “. . . to prevent further bloodshed.”

  Henrietta adjusted her glasses, which remarkably stayed on her face during the fight, and examined the four standing together. “Where is Guy?”

  “He is . . .” Tempeste winced. She could not bring herself to tell them she failed to stop Remy. “We need to warn Rachael and the others. It is too dangerous for them to return to the Sirocco. Remy plans to kill them next.”

  Tempeste hurried to the nearest guardrail and looked past its edge, hoping to spot Rachael’s party. Ulysses stood at her side while searching the horizon for Rachael’s group.

  “Next,” Ulysses said. “As in, others died?”

  “Yes,” Tempeste confirmed. “Captain Bordeaux, most of the crew, and . . .”

  She stopped herself from revealing Guy’s name. No, she could not let his demise distract them. Tempeste left the party she was in. Seeing Bordeaux’s HP at zero and knowing that it would remain that way for all eternity was depressing.

  With the party dissolved, she made a new one with Kam, Henrietta, and Ulysses.

  Tempeste spotted something in the sky, something with fairy wings flying behind a shadow angel. Rachael, Zuran, and Xanthe were on their approach to the Sirocco, performing remarkable spins and rolls in the air to escape from cannonballs and Mage spells. Averyl was not with them. According to Guy, it was Nijana who had flown back earlier.

  Tempeste avoided pondering what had become of the true fae princess. Right now, she had to warn Rachael’s party not to approach the Sirocco. Down below on the Sirocco’s decks, its cannons were slowly aiming at the flying three, as dark elf Mages lined up near portholes with casting tomes in hand. Rachael’s team was about to fly right into the firing range of a ship they thought was friendly.

  Tempeste leaped up and down frantically, waving her hands and screaming to get their attention.

  “Turn around! Do not come aboard!” Tempeste screamed as loud as she could.

  Henrietta watched and shook her head. “It is not working.”

  “They cannot hear us from this distance,” Kam said, also observing the flying trio.

  “As I feared . . .” Tempeste stopped shouting. Her yells had alerted roaming dark elves on the Sirocco. “Star-dweller,” Tempeste said, pivoting to Ulysses in a
hurry. “Will your machina communication device work?”

  “No, it can only reach Arn, up in orbit,” Ulysses said, and grimaced. “I really wished I had given one to Rachael and Guy . . . Hey, where is he?”

  “I present a better question,” Henrietta said. She pointed at the dark elves brandishing ethereal lances and rushing to their position. “What shall we do about them?!”

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Averyl opened her eyes, stretched, and yawned, feeling like she had taken a pleasant nap.

  That was because she did.

  She had awoken in the cabin of the New Svartálfar airship and was left there by Nijana and her Lullaby bard song. And Nijana did so by using the Flame Priestess’s Robe as bait to distract Averyl. She checked her party’s status.

  Rachael | HP: 389/883 | MP: 112/230 | AP: 100/100

  Averyl | HP: 609/609 | MP: 1120/1120 | AP: 0/100

  Zuran | HP: 491/494 | MP: 799/1092 | AP: 0/100

  Xanthe | HP: 688/712 | MP: 0/0 | AP: 40/100

  They were alive, in flight, and had left Averyl behind, likely believing that Nijana was her. Nijana was a Cleric and wore the Flame Priestess’s Robe Averyl had lost back at the bathing lake, then found lying on the deck of the airship. She sighed when she put it together. This was Nijana’s plan all along. Steal the robe, level Cleric high enough to wear it, then pretend to be Averyl while leaving the real Averyl to die alone on a crashing and burning New Svartálfar airship.

  “Princess Autumnfall!”

  Okay, perhaps not alone. There was someone else aboard the doomed ship, calling out to Averyl. She turned around to see Emeraldal Riversong and Veronis Greenwillow offering their hands to her.

  “Please come with us before it is too late!” Veronis cried out.

  Averyl could make out the sight of other imperials moving to the cabin behind the smoke and flames. The empire was there to take her back. The people she ran away from were offering her a way off and to safety… and back into her father’s arms and into whatever plans Serzax had.

  Averyl shook her head and backed away from the two. Emeraldal sighed and nocked an arrow that appeared in her hands.