The Eros Expansion

by Prax Venter

  Mark followed his bony finger to the wooden barrels with black X’s painted on the sides. He figured they must be for the ship’s cannons, but some of them had long wicks trailing out from holes in the top. “Not to mention what the captain is libel to do when he sees ya befouling his baby.”

  Roo shrugged and tossed her red-hot needle into the ocean where it hissed quickly before sinking to the bottom. Kirk shook his skull in disbelief and went back to tugging on some rope.

  “Captain!” Dan called from up in the crow’s nest. Mark looked up and used his hand to shade his eyes against the bright blue sky. “Storm’s a brewin! Port side.”

  Mark didn’t know what side the port side was, but when he looked out over the ocean all he saw were blue skies… and a distant giant skeleton rising out of the water.

  “Flames take us all,” Vale swore, and Ahnix’s tail began to flip about wildly behind her.

  “Is that…” Roo started but never finished.

  As the monstrosity rose from the water to its full height, it looked like the giant skeleton was sitting in the ocean, cross-legged. It tilted its massive skull up toward the sky and opened its jaw, letting out a horrible moaning sound that echoed across the water.

  “Thunder sounds close,” Porter said looking out over the ocean, next to Mark.

  “Thunder?” Vale said. “You don’t see that thing out there?”

  “Thing?” Porter asked, scanning the horizon. There was no way anyone could miss the fifty-story human skeleton sitting in the water. “Nope,” was his only response.

  “Get the sails off ‘er, lads! Batten down the hatches and close all portholes!” First mate Nate called out commands from the back of the ship, and Porter ran off to follow orders.

  Mark turned his attention to the insane situation out at sea and saw the skeleton crash one of its arms down into the water. A moment later, the ship rocked side to side from the waves crashing against the hull.

  “Might want to get below decks, you lubbers,” Captain Helgin called out from the wheel. “’Bout to get choppy.”

  Mark shook his head and ran up the wooden stairs to the raised section near the back of the ship.

  “Captain!” he yelled as if he was trying to wake someone from sleeping. “There isn’t a cloud in the sky. You need to steer the ship away from that… thing out there.”

  Captain Helgin sloshed his rum as he pointed to the bright, blue sky with his mug. “What do you call them angry, black bastards up there? I’ll leave the fight’n ta you while you leave the sail’n ta me. Deal? Now get the fuck off my poop deck.”

  Mark grit his teeth and ran back down the stairs to his girls. “We have a problem.”

  “Yes, a skeleton the size of a mountain,” Ahnix said, crossing her arms.

  “And the NPCs don’t see it,” Mark added.

  “Guys,” Roo called out. “It’s getting really close.”

  Mark turned his head and saw the thing slam its other skeletal hand down into the water. The resulting wave splashed over the side, causing the ship to tilt dramatically. Roo ran up to higher ground to join the Captain and the first mate.

  “We gotta do something!” Mark shouted. The ship was sailing right for the towering creature and, with a sickening slowness, it turned its colossal skull downward to face their relatively tiny vessel. Its jaw opened, and a deep, deafening sound vibrated Mark’s whole world. It sounded like slowed-down laughter.

  The skeleton lifted its right arm out of the water and slowly reached outward for the ship. Mark’s mind scrabbled for a solution for about one second before he saw a huge iron ball launch into the air from his left. He turned and saw Roo picking herself up off the deck.

  The iron ball impacted one of the massive finger bones and a loud cracking sound echoed across the water. The monster sitting in the ocean reared its head back, howled an ear-splitting wail and begun slamming both hands into the water with rage.

  As close as they were, the ship rocked violently as giant swells of water crashed into its side and over the deck. Ahnix had to dig her claws into the wood while Vale caught Mark with her strong arms. The giant naga was hard to knock over.

  Soaked through, Mark looked up and saw Roo hanging from one of the ropes attached to the nearby mast and was relieved that she hadn’t gone overboard. The monster stopped splashing and started to reach its hand out again.

  “I can enhance Roo,” Mark called out. “Maybe with a big enough-”

  “No,” Vale cut him off. “Not enough time or damage. Ahnix, go stand by that powder keg.”

  The cat-girl nodded and ran where she was told.

  “Roo!” Vale shouted up to the velvet girl. “Light that wick, now!”

  “Wait a damn minute!” Captain Helgin snapped, his jaw clacking.

  Roo ignored him and held her hand out to the large barrel filled with gunpowder. A small flame sparked into existence and started to burn up the wick.

  “Those are for destroying ships!” Nate called out, running down the stairs. “Put that out, or we’ll all be dead!”

  Vale moved to intercept the frantic first mate while she barked out more orders.

  “Mark! Hit Ahnix- Ahnix deposit it inside the skull!”

  Understanding washed over him and he held up his heart-shaped ring toward his treasured cat-girl. Enhancing her teleport had become as simple as breathing, and her fur began to glow as Mark quickly pumped her full of pleasurable energy.

  Ahnix looked down at the sparks traveling up the braided wick, placed her hands on the powder keg- and waited.

  “Go! What are you waiting for?” Vale yelled, fighting off Nate.

  Mark’s attention was pulled to the dark shadow passing over the ship caused by the creature’s humongous skull. Vertigo spun inside Mark’s head as he watched its unimaginably huge arms lift hundreds of feet into the sky. They were all about to be obliterated. He looked away just in time to see Ahnix vanish and take the hissing powder keg along with her.

  The concussive boom came a second later and knocked everyone but Vale to the weathered wooden deck of the Skipping Coin. A large shard of white bone whipped past Mark’s face and lodged into the wood by his head, but he ignored it and looked up to see Ahnix back where she started.

  He instantly felt the horrible burns and cuts that covered her body. She was in pain, but Mark resisted the urge to blow his heal on his cat-girl before making sure Roo and Vale weren’t worse off. A quick ping along their bonds turned up shock, but no damage, and Mark scrambled over to his love.

  He wrapped his arms around her and unleashed a surge of power and healed her wounds as bits of skull rained down around them. The boat rocked below him as the towering, now headless, skeleton collapsed back into the ocean. Mark was almost distracted by the torrent of essence flooding into him from the epic kill, but Ahnix was paramount in his mind.

  By the time he had completely restored her, the sea was calm again. She blinked her exotic eyes up at him and let out a content sigh.

  “I wanted to make sure it just didn’t roll out,” she explained.

  “You did good,” Vale said, leaning over Mark’s shoulder.

  “That crazy trick worked!” Dan yelled from the crow’s nest. He turned his skull down to yell at Captain Helgin. “Storms dissipat’n! Clear seas to Silvermist!”

  Mark looked up to see Helgin and Nate staring down at them.

  “You try foolishness like that again on my ship- ye be shark bait quicker than ye can spit.” His hollow eyes focused on Mark with an uncharacteristically still soberness.

  Mark nodded. “Aye aye, Captain.”

  “Right,” Helgin said. “Get ‘er on the move, Nate.”

  The captain turned toward the seas ahead as his first mate begun to bark out orders again.

  Roo walked up and squatted down next to Mark. Her short leather skirt rode up her legs, and Mark got an eyeful of her soft, velvet vagina.

  “What an amazing blast!” she said, her black eyes twinkling. “Explosions are
deeper into my Fire path, and I’m pretty sure I know where I’m going to be plopping my future points.”

  The skeletal crew unfurled all the sails, and before long, they were speeding along the surface of the ocean again.

  About a half hour later, Dan shouted another observation from his lookout position.

  “Silvermist ho!”

  Mark turned to see what looked like low-hanging clouds on the water.

  Helgin spun the wheel, pointing the ship right for the dense fog. “Surprised Ol’ Blackheart has no ships out on patrol,” he said with a laugh. “Cocky bastard!”

  As the ship entered the mist, visibility became very short, but Mark could still see looming spires of jagged rocks emerging from the ocean.

  “Reef the sails,” Nate called out with a shouted whisper.

  The crew of the Skipping Coin made careful adjustments, folding up some of the thick fabric, and the ship slowed. The muffling fog gave Mark a seriously ominous feeling, but then he looked around at his beautiful, deadly girls and felt ready for anything.

  Captain Helgin handled the drifting ship like he was performing brain surgery, and Mark was astonished at how close some of the hull-piercing rocks had passed by. A handful of heart-pounding moments later they emerged from the mists, and Mark saw a tropical island nestled within the protective barrier. It was as if the ring of obscuring fog and deadly rocks were perfectly placed to protect the island. And they were, Mark realized. They were in a pirate-themed Adventure Dome, hand-crafted for paying tourists.

  He smiled when he saw a huge wooden ship perched on the rocks at the top of the dark mountain. It was perfectly dramatic.

  “How’d that boat get up there?” Roo asked what everyone was wondering.

  Captain Helgin heard Roo and answered. “Legend says Blackheart was trolling the ocean for plunder when an ungodly waterspout caught his ship- The Aegaeon- and tossed it into the heavens. His galleon came back down only to be impaled by the craggy, black mountain. And it’s said this island has a mind of its own. Silvermist Isle roams the seas, looking ta lure ships into its maw. They say that Blackheart struck a deal with the island. He gives it souls and gets to keep the shiny coin left behind.”

  “If the island moves, how did you find it?” Vale asked, her perfect white eyebrows pulled down.

  “Bah, folk say all kinds of things. Just follow my old pirate nose to the biggest pile o’ gold.” The captain tapped the empty nose hole in his skull, and Vale shook her head.

  “Weigh anchor!” the captain called out, and Porter worked a winch at the front of the ship, lowering an iron chain into the dark waters below. Helgin came down the wooden stairs to join Mark and his girls on the deck.

  “Ye be on your own from here. Plenty of killing up ahead that we simple sailors don’t have the means or the stomach for. Just give a bellow from shore when the coast is clear.”

  Ahnix looked across the water to the shore and then turned to Mark.

  “Feel like skipping the boat ride and taking the fast route?”

  Mark smiled as Roo and Vale reached out to touch the cat-girl’s shoulder.

  “We’ll let you know when it’s safe. Thanks for the ride.” After Mark finished, he moderately boosted the distance on Ahnix’s teleport ability again. They were all turned inside out for the briefest instant and then they were standing on the beach.

  This beach was much different from the pleasant, relaxing beach near the town of Candlewick. The sky was bleak and overcast, and here the sand was gray with rotting seaweed spreading out like an infection. Black flies hovered in swarms, and the sour smell made Mark gag.

  Among the rot, there were bits of wood that looked like broken ship pieces.

  “I don’t like it here,” Roo said, wrinkling her nose.

  Ahnix’s tail hopped once and then hung limply. Mark could tell she didn’t like it either.

  Out of a dark cave against the rock mountainside came a deep booming voice.

  “Heard whispers you lot was comin’. Now let’s see who dares to flap their mouth about killin’ the Captain.”

  Mark turned to see a skeleton with abnormally thick bones standing about ten feet tall. He wore torn breeches and a long black coat with the front open, exposing a solid-looking ribcage. In one skeletal hand was a long, black harpoon and in the other was a golden net.

  “Welcome to Silvermist Isle!” As soon as his jawbone stopped moving, he launched his barbed harpoon right at Mark’s chest.

  Vale’s backside appeared as she blocked the strike with Perfect Cover. From around the giant naga, Mark saw the black harpoon zip back to the large skeleton’s hand.

  “Argh!” their attacker yelled and tossed his golden net over Vale. Mark was able to back away in time, but his guardian naga went down instantly, blue shocks from the net paralyzing her and causing an uncomfortable pain.

  “Horrible Hooks!” Roo shouted to Mark’s left, and giant fishhooks on chains emerged from the ground and latched onto the thick-boned skeleton.

  Mark didn’t wait for the hooks to pull the guy down, he leveled his crossbow on the bastard’s chest and squeezed the trigger. It was a direct hit, but instead of going down he just pulled Roo’s hooks out of the ground with his arms instead.

  Ahnix appeared behind the beast of a skeleton and performed a spinning jump kick while she yelled, “Doom Kick!” The hulking skeleton moved his head an inch out of range from the black rip her foot caused and swung Roo’s chains to launch a brutal counter-attack. The cat-girl Retracted, and the linked metal whistled through the air where she was.

  Roo launched an iron ball that impacted his skull, making the first cracking sound they heard and causing a minor stun.

  Ahnix leveled her hacker tool on Vale and melted a hole in the glowing, golden ropes with her EMP scramble.

  Vale growled fiercely as her fingers clenched onto the edges of the hole and tore it open with her brute strength.

  The thick-boned skeleton recovered from his stun and launched his boomerang harpoon at Roo, but Mark popped up his shield just in time to deflect the attack. Like before, the shaft of black metal zipped back to his hand afterward.

  This time, afterimages of Vale appeared right behind it as she smashed the large skeleton in its skull with an Improved Shield Bash. Mark heard another crack, and their attacker suffered a major stun from the powerful impact.

  Vale wasted no time sticking her shotgun downward into his ribcage and blasting his pelvis into fragments.

  Mark felt a rush of essence enter his body from defeating this powerful foe. He wasn’t dead yet though, and the half-skeleton let out a labored chuckle from the ground.

  “Aye, you got me. But there be fifty more like me before you reach The Aegaeon and Cap’n Blackheart…They’ll avenge me…” He gasped his final dramatic breath and then lay still.

  “That guy was tough,” Roo said, looking down at the pile of thick bones on the filthy, wet sand.

  Vale attached her laser shotgun to her hip and looked up the path towards their destination.

  “We need to be careful,” She said turning to the black and gold technology expert. “Killing NPCs cause more to spawn, and there’s a limited number of blank brains, right?”

  Mark felt Ahnix get a flash of inspiration before she pointed one of her furry fingers up to the looming pirate ship on the mountain far above them.

  “Mark, hit me. I’ll just go up there and check it out. Maybe snag a brain while I’m at it.”

  Vale crossed her arms and looked up. “Okay, use stealth. Nothing risky.”

  Ahnix’s tail hopped once, but she nodded and then turned her exotic eyes on Mark. She sent him a message, asking him to keep Harem Recall ready, just in case.

  Mark nodded. “See you soon, my love,” he said and pumped her teleport with power.

  Ahnix slowly faded from sight as she activated stealth before the long-range teleport.

  Mark, Vale, and Roo exchanged worried glances. They all hated to be separated.


  About five minutes went by, and Mark got a signal from Ahnix’s mind to look up. Vale and Roo picked up on it too, and they all saw a small figure jump off the distant boat. She dropped like a stone, and before Mark could activate Harem Recall, the short cat-girl just teleported safely to the ground when she was in range.

  “Damn, you almost gave me a heart attack,” Mark said letting out a deep breath.

  Ahnix held out a silver hunk of metal that looked like a large egg.

  “Mission accomplished. Blackheart didn’t even know I was there.”

  Vale smiled brightly. “Perfect! We don’t have to worry about the last one getting stamped, or whatever.”

  Ahnix gave back one of her new curly smiles. “Let’s just get this back now. Roo can take us home from here and be done with this place.”

  Mark thought about the skeletal crew of the Skipping Coin and felt a twinge of sadness just leaving them waiting forever. He was about to explore the moral ramifications when Roo beat him to it.

  “We made a deal with the pirates, though.”

  Vale nodded and put her hand on Roo’s shoulder, making her stance clear.

  Mark was torn between just leaving or fighting all the way up to Captain Blackheart’s landlocked ship. They were simple Adventure Dome NPCs after all.

  Ahnix had been torn herself until he picked up a trace of Mark’s thoughts. She snapped her eyes to his and her black tail hung limply behind her legs as her mood changed dramatically.

  “You’re right, Roo,” the cat-girl said quietly. “They may just be NPCs, but so were we before Mark came along to help us.”

  Mark nodded his agreement. “You girls have come a long way, and I think we all agree; we do not break our promises, no matter who they are to. Besides, I bet there is a lot of essence in it for us.”

  Roo nodded to the dark, jungle path that led up the mountain from the beach.

  “There’s the front door. Shall we smash some bones?”

  “No,” Vale said, causing mild confusion to reverberate from everyone else in their interconnected bond. She raised one perfect eyebrow. “No one said we still had to play by the rules. Ahnix, with another boost from our Lover, you think you could get us all up there?”