*****
Shari and Layne stood on the shore watching as the boat pulled up to the dock. The approach was smooth, the boat slowing to a standstill just as it came alongside. The sailors tossed lines to the elves on the dock, and the boat was secured. Shari waited impatiently for sight of a dark elf leaping from the boat to the dock. Layne too seemed to be craning her neck a bit. Shari had told her much about Mace during their trip, and the bard was curious.
The crew started to unload the cargo from the boat, as a silver-haired elf Shari took to be the captain spoke to the caravan leader. There was some pointing and smiling, then the caravan boss waved for Shari to come over. She and Layne and the critters moved up the dock, staying to one side to avoid the elves carrying cargo. When she reached the end, the captain introduced himself. “Shari? I’m Jorin. Pleasure to meet you.” He shook her hand, and she introduced Layne, Snuffles, and Mion. “Captain I was hoping Mace would make the trip with you. Did he not arrive back at Lakeside in time?”
Jorin chuckled, then pointed. Shari followed his finger and saw a dark elf seated on a crate, leaning back against a sack of something. His eyes were closed, mouth open. Shari snorted. She looked to the captain and asked “May I?”
Jorin waved her aboard. “I was hoping you would. Might not be safe to wake a sleeping drow.” he grinned. Shari walked up the short ramp and across the deck. She stood in front of Mace, looking first at him, then at their surroundings. After a moment, a smile grew on her face. She stepped toward the center of the deck, placing Mace between herself and the low rail. Crouching down, she shouted “Mace! Fire! Help! Fire! Mace!”
Mace was on his feet before he was awake, looking around wildly. While he was still disoriented, Shari shoved him as hard as she could. He stumbled backward and over the rail into the water. She stepped forward and peeked over the edge as he spluttered and cursed. Snuffles stood next to her, head tilted curiously, looking down at the strange elf splashing around in the water. The crew and the nearby elves were laughing and pointing now, too. When Mace stopped splashing and looked up, she said “You awake now?”
Mace looked up to see a beautiful elfess with a dragon on her shoulder and a not so beautiful pig staring down at him. “Shari? Is that you? What the hell??” he called up. The grin on her face was completely unrepentant. He had to laugh in spite of himself. “Yes, I’m awake. And I’m SO gonna pay you back for that!” he said as he made for the shore just a few yards away. Shari put both hands to her cheeks and widened her eyes in a look of mock terror. He chose to pretend he didn’t see.
Once he’d made his way back up onto the dock, Shari introduced him to Layne and the other elves. Several were less than enthusiastic about meeting him, but all were polite. Mace assumed the fact that he’d endured a dunking without killing anyone had helped his cause. The cargo was all offloaded, and the flow of traffic changed. Mace and Shari both helped the elves unload the wagons and carry the supplies to the boat, where the crew stacked them in the hold or up on deck, and lashed them down.
When all the wagons were empty, Jorin thanked the elves profusely on behalf of the citizens of Lakeside. Shari said her own goodbyes, and the caravan headed back to Emarien. Once again the mooring lines were cleared, and the crew shoved off from the dock. Mace took a few minutes to tickle Mion and wrassle with Snuffles while Minx introduced herself to everyone by leaping from shoulder to shoulder. Shari gasped when Minx wrapped her tail around her neck and said “Pretty elf. Funny. Mace all wet.” telepathically. “Oh! You can talk to me, too! You are just the cutest little thing, Minx!” she gushed.
The group settled down amidst the piles of supplies and chatted as the boat tacked back and forth. The first time they changed direction, Mace had looked significantly at the captain, who laughed and said “Yes, lad. Now we’re tacking. The wind that sped us here so quickly is hard against us now. We’ll be lucky to reach Lakeside by dusk.”
This alarmed Mace slightly, but the captain seemed confident. When Shari asked him why his faced looked like it did, he explained to her about leviathans and navigating the lake in the dark. As Mace spoke, Minx and Mion sniffed at each other a bit, then seemed to reach some kind of agreement. Snuffles had leapt into Mace’s lap and was getting his belly scratched. Shari smirked at him, mumbling “Traitor” as the pig’s eyes rolled up in his head and he sighed contentedly. Layne played her lute, much to the delight of the crew.
As the sun moved across the sky, one of the crew brought around tea and sandwiches for everyone. The captain joined them for the meal, plopping down on the deck next to Layne, who was settled inside a large coil of rope. He looked at the sky briefly, then asked “I don’t suppose any of you have any air magic?”
Mace raised his hand. “Limited to a short range, but I can cast a blast of wind.” He suspected he knew where this was going. The captain confirmed his suspicion a moment later. “We’re making slower progress than planned. I’d rather not be out here when the sun sets. A straight path, even for a while, would help us.”
Mace got to his feet and moved to position himself to the rear of the mast. He raised his arms in a V pattern in front of him and called out the trigger. “Ventus!” As his mana channeled the spell, a blast of air shot forth from his hands, inflating the sail. The captain had set a course that was just south of directly into the wind. Mace’s air magic pushed at the ship, picking up speed as he channeled more mana into the spell. The ship’s momentum slowly increased until it danced over the waves. Mace held the spell for nearly three minutes before his mana was too low to maintain it. As he sat down, the captain skillfully used their speed to his advantage, tacking northward to pick up the natural wind without sacrificing momentum.
“Thank you, lad. You’ve been a help.” Jorin said. They continued on until, just before dusk, the lookout spotted the far shore. He called it out as the captain adjusted slightly to keep the wind. Mace noticed that Jorin wasn’t looking toward shore. And that he was frowning. Mace stood and stepped closer. “Problem?”
Jorin kept both hands on the wheel, motioning with his chin toward the deep water behind them. Mace followed his gaze, and saw nothing at first. After staring for several seconds, he realized the captain’s concern. There was a swell moving toward them. Against the wind, in the middle of the lake. Moving in a direct line straight at them. It grew as it drew closer. The captain shouted “Leviathan!” just as Mace was thinking the swell looked like something he’d seen on a show about when killer whales attacked seals. The surge of water they pushed in front of them as they powered into an attack.
Mace’s mouth went dry as the crew began to scramble. Each of the passengers were handed a length of rope and told to tie themselves to something. Crewmen were grabbing harpoons and hand axes. Mace noticed almost none of it as he focused on the wall of water that was forming. The sheer size of it, already several times the size of their boat, made him want to hide in a hole somewhere. He focused on not shitting himself in terror as his imagination filled in an image of what must be rushing toward them.
The truth was so much worse.
The boat rocked violently as the leviathan passed beneath and the surge lifted, then dropped them. The creature placed itself between them and the shore, bursting up from the depths with a spray like a volcanic eruption. Visibility was nil for several seconds as the displaced water fell over them. When Mace could see again, he wished he hadn’t looked. The leviathan loomed a good twenty feet above the surface, three tentacles on either side of its body already reaching toward them. The monster resembled a giant salamander, if salamanders had a jaw filled with rows of serrated teeth and an octopus for a daddy, and a dragon for a granddaddy.
Adolescent Leviathan
Level 55
Health: 28,000/28,000
Mace shouted at nobody in particular “This is a damned adolescent?!” He cringed at the though of what an adult might look like. That was all he had time to think about before a tentacle whipped toward his head. He ducked the blow, reflex
ively raising his enchanted dagger. It sliced into the tentacle as it passed, and two things happened simultaneously. First, the monster bellowed in a deep tone that sounded half blue whale and half foghorn. The wood of the ship vibrated with the sound. But Mace barely registered the sound, because his arm practically melted from the sensation of power rushing up from the dagger, while inside his head there was a voice, of sorts. More of a feeling.
“Feeeeed!”
The longing he felt in his mind from the life-stealing dagger nearly overpowered him for a moment. It had certainly let him know it enjoyed the surge of energy from taking lives in the past. Most recently at Darkstone when he’d ended so many lives in a short period. But it seemed to sense the immense power of their current foe and called to the darkest of his drow’s racial instincts. He wanted blood. Power. He wanted to kill.
Layne had taken up a spot near the helm where she could shelter behind some crates, and was playing a rousing song that gave everyone a range of buffs. Strength, stamina, agility, and intelligence were all increased by 10%. Shari was alternating between firing arrows and shooting Nature’s Wrath at the monster. The crew were battling the tentacles with axes and swords, chopping away whenever one came close. Already a six-foot length of sushi was laying on the deck, which was becoming slick with blood.
Mace leapt to assist a sailor who’d been seized by another tentacle. He could hear the rubbery skin contracting as it squeezed the life out its victim. Mace drove his dagger into the appendage just above where it began its coil. The weapon pumped him full of… something. Adrenaline? He could hear his pulse throbbing and the wail of the leviathan as he tore at the tentacle. Its grip on the sailor loosened, dropping the corpse to the deck before it withdrew back out over the water. The last several feet hanging limply by a bit of skin and muscle.
Shari decided to test one of her new skills, and cast a fire spell on an arrow before releasing it. It streaked through the darkening air to impact the creature’s throat near the gills. The skin around the impact site sizzled and bubbled as the heated arrow sank deep into its flesh. Encouraged, Shari screamed “Use fire!”
Mace took the hint. Raising both hands, he shouted “Infier!” and a fireball sped toward the leviathan’s face. Too bulky and slow to move out of the way, it attempted to block the spell with a tentacle. The fireball struck and melted off the appendage about halfway up. The severed section fell onto the deck, bubbling and crackling like bacon on a skillet.
Adolescent Leviathan
Level 55
Health: 16,000/28,000
The loss of more than half of its tentacles was draining the thing’s health at a respectable pace. Each of the damaged limbs was bleeding as well, except the one that Mace had just burned off. It was cauterized.
One of the intact tentacles had wrapped itself around the main mast and was attempting to overturn the boat. Scattered about in the water, the crew would be easy targets. Four crewmen were hacking away at the thing, trying to loosen its grip. The weight of the cargo in the hold and on the deck meant a serious strain on the boat’s integrity. The boards around the base of the mast began to creak and pop.
The captain shouted “The mast! She won’t hold! Get clear!” but the valiant crewmen continued to hack determinedly at the tentacle. Mace could see something needed to be done, and quickly. He was too far from the mast to reach it in time, so he cast a spell “Frigus!”. The tentacle around the mast began to frost over, the rime spreading in both directions along the coil. Being a water-based monster, the thing had significant liquid content, and froze quickly. As the sailors hacked, the sound went from a wet, meaty impact to cracking and breaking noises. A moment later the tentacle shattered and a cheer went up among the crew. The tortured boat settled back onto her keel. The motion tossed an injured sailor screaming over the rail and into the water.
Shari was still firing arrows, and Mace saw captain Jorin hurl a harpoon into the monster’s gills. The water around the massive beast was stained red and pink with froth as it thrashed about. Mace’s blood was still thundering with the need infused within him by his dagger. He turned to see the last remaining tentacle reach for the nearby helm. He leapt atop the thing as it gripped the wheel, and began to sprint up toward the leviathan’s body. He cast his ice spell again, this time aiming for the beast’s eye. “Frigus!” The eye immediately began to frost over, effectively blinding the monster on one side. Mace continued his run until he was near its body. Leaping from the tentacle just as he would leap from one tree limb to another, he drove both daggers into its torso. The enchanted dagger practically sang with pleasure as it began to suck the life from the massive creature.
Adolescent Leviathan
Level 55
Health: 7,000/28,000
It’s frozen eye cracked as it bellowed in pain. One of the shortened tentacles slammed into Mace, crushing him against the beast’s body. Some kind of hard ridge on the underside sliced into his back. His health bar dropped to 40% instantly, and he was stunned. The beast began to sink into the water, having decided it could not win. Mace could only hang there, hands locked onto his daggers, unable to even take a deep breath as the lake’s waters closed over him. His dagger continued to drain the life from his enemy even as his UI flashed a notification that he was drowning.
As the stun wore off, he ripped into the creature with his dagger, tearing a wide rent in its chest. A spray of blood erupted around him as he severed a vital artery, and the leviathan shuddered. It rolled onto its back, now completely limp, and began to sink.
Level up! You have reached level 41!
You have earned one attribute point.
Mace was quickly running out of air. He placed a hand on the monster and looted the corpse, then pushed off as it continued to sink. He franticly stroked toward the surface, his lungs burning and his vision narrowing. The light above had faded, and he began to be unsure which way was actually up. His air now completely gone, his health bar began to tick down at -10hp/sec. His stamina was gone, too. He could feel himself slipping away.
The sound of the water in his ears changed as he broke the surface. He could hear Shari yelling his name as he gasped in a lungful of air and no small amount of water. He went back under momentarily, then pushed himself back up, coughing and spluttering. A moment later one of the crewmen was there, tying a rope around his chest and under his arms. He was vaguely aware of being pulled toward the boat when he passed out.
*****
Shari shouted to Mace to let go as the leviathan began to retreat under the water. She saw him take a hit that split open his back, and tried to heal him. But he was outside her range. She begged Mion to get closer and heal him, and the little dragon took off. But Mace was already gone under the red-stained water. “Mace!” She shouted.
A groan behind her told her that someone was injured. She turned and healed three crewmen who were laying on the deck bleeding. Two more were tossing a line to the one who’d been thrown overboard as the captain shouted orders. Layne had changed to her healing tune. Mion was hovering over the spot where the leviathan and Mace had disappeared, the little dragon peering down as if she could see what was happening below through all the blood and foam.
As Shari watched, Mion let out a shrill cry and began to fly in a tight circle. A moment later, Mace’s body broke the surface. Shari saw him take a breath as Mion cast a heal on him, then he went back under. Shari held her own breath as she waited for him to reappear. When he did, she screamed “There! Mace is there! Please somebody help him!” She hadn’t meant to scream, but the adrenaline in her system had her reactions on overdrive.
One of the crewmen she’d just healed grabbed one end of a rope and dove into the water while two more took up the other end. They let the rope play out as the man swam toward Mace’s bobbing form. Shari breathed a sigh of relief when the man shouted “He’s alive! Pull!” and the crew began to reel them both back in. They lifted Mace out of the water and deposited his unconscious body gently on the de
ck. Shari was healing him as soon as he came into range.
By the time Mace regained consciousness, things had calmed quite a bit. The captain was assessing the damage as crewman began to tidy up the deck and wrap their dead comrade in white cloth. Layne was still playing her soothing healing song. Shari was sitting on the deck next to Mace, her adrenaline rush fading. She saw him open one eye, then the other. “What a dumbass move that was.” She casually stated.
Mace groaned and tried to sit up. She held him down. He said “Didn’t exactly go as planned. Damn thing stunned me and I couldn’t let go. Took me way the hell down there. This lake is deep. Like, really deep.” He coughed, feeling as if there was still water in his lungs. Minx appeared on his chest, reaching a tiny paw forward to touch his face. Her voice in his mind said “Mace all wet. Again.”
Shari patted his head, saying “Well, you finished it off. Got me three levels. So thanks for that.” Mace snorted. “Happy to help, m’lady.”
The two of them remained there on the deck while the captain got the boat moving again. It was another hour before they reached the dock at Lakeside. When they did, Mace made quick introductions to the captain. He was told that the freed prisoners had arrived with the wagon, and were settling in. Mace left the unloading to the two captains and led Shari and Layne to the inn. He arranged for a room for Layne, then led Shari upstairs to his room. Without a word, they dismissed their companions, laid down on the bed, and logged out.
*****
Shari emerged from her room wearing her fuzzy bunny pajama scrubs. She wanted to speak to Mace before she went to bed. Actually, she wanted Mace to join in her bed. Finding his room empty, she called out “Peabody? Can you tell me where Mace is?”
She heard Mace call out “Security room” at the same time Peabody answered “Mace is in the security room, Admin Shari.”
Land of the Undying Page 41