Chapter 66: ... Into the Mire

Around Galynth an enormous glob of sticky black tar exploded, enveloping him and a couple of nearby men completely, to their exclamations and curses. Sammy anxiously checked on him mentally, but other than being stuck, there was nothing harmful to the material. It was something of a relief, as she expected worse.

Seeing an opportunity, Bast unleashed a Forcebolt right at the distracted shaman. It was not blocked — instead, she took the hit with some apparent dissipation from her leather armor. She still reeled back a step, grimacing and smoking from her torso. Her scowl for Bast was an exceptionally nasty one.

He followed up with another bolt immediately, but she gestured with her hand and the protective shield materialized and blocked it.

Meanwhile, Sammy was trying to seek targets in the other mirror shield, but it ended up becoming a dead-end… men had been warned not to look into it.

I guess I’m Mirror Medusa now.

Wraevaus was fully visible as a huge figure in gray and black bone-like armor, wielding two axes of different styles — one was double-headed, the other single and appeared also made of bone. He barked an order for the crossbow fire to commence as the pirate ship came up more parallel with the Strip.

The big crossbow bolts launched and almost unerringly hit their targets — they blew through shields, armor, and even through men themselves with ease. Enchanted.

Several soldiers and sailors dropped with their chests blown out… but hardly all. Several more had holes in shields and armor but not in flesh. Hers and Orswyth’s protection spells had saved them.

Wraevaus seemed pissed at this — he roared and ran up to the railing, hurling an axe at a sailor, who ducked out of the way of the errant throw, which seemed absurd and anticlimactic…

Until the double-bladed axe came spinning back up from behind.

“Look out!” Sammy tried to send in desperation to all her Followers.

But it was too late. The axe caught the wielder of the mirrored shield from behind unawares, completely decapitating him at the neck. The body of the big man Elias dropped to the deck, spurting blood. The axe kept flying past to return to Wraevaus, who caught it in the air.

Follower died. 1 Daily FE lost (total: 24).

Enraged, Samantha found herself on her feet without even the memory of getting up. She immediately activated the relic use, then called the incantations, made the rune forms, casting Icebolt through the unassuming staff of Orswyth, hurling it at Wraevaus with a scream of fury.

The icy dart flew across the space in a blink. The pirate captain was caught unaware by it, blasted in the chest by the freezing cold magic, which he simply took with a growl and a grunt, soon shaking it off.

“I’m awake! Haha!”

Samantha wasn’t amused, hurling another spell immediately, but he dodged this deftly.

“Stop fucking off like this is a game, Husband!” his wife shouted at him balefully.

“Don’t nag me in the middle of a fucking battle, Wife!”

Samantha was getting ready for another Icebolt…

Somehow, Orswyth could sense this and he forestalled her. “Samantha! Please! He’s too high-level and tough, don’t waste it on him. Inflict casualties on the soldiers and archers.”

“Yes… you’re right….” Snapping herself out of it as she saw one of Bast’s Forcebolts smash into and knock back a pirate. Sammy tossed her own spell at an archer just before he fired, catching him right in the face with a burst of freezing magic. He could not even scream as he dropped to the deck, hands holding a cold-smoking, ruined head.

I just directly killed someone… I’m a killer. They would’ve screamed in agony in their last moments… Desperately, Samantha held onto the Goddess class like a lifeline, invoking it just to keep her head while in the conflict.

Telekek snarled at her husband with a show of teeth. “You dare curse at me?” She flicked her head away, though, and chanted in dreadful tones that echoed all directions. The scepter in her hands began to shift… wriggle… and its eyes on both ends came to ghostly life. Then she hurled it at the Strip.

As soon as it left her hand, it began growing and lengthening into a massive red constrictor as thick as a man, glowing with a ghostly aura almost like red-tinged feathery smoke. It slithered through the air between the ships.

Someone shot an arrow at it, which embedded in apparent harmlessness as if sticking into wood — or a corpse. Samantha and Bast fired magic — it dodged hers but Bast’s impacted with a momentary explosion that just nudged it temporarily off course. But it kept coming.

The first thing it did was smash into one of the ballistas — the crew nearby dived out of the way to avoid it. The ghostly snake ripped the machine from its anchorage as it slammed through it and carried on. The slithering continued on the deck where it curled around the base of the mast… then it wound its way entirely back off the deck, its length still left in the wake of the great head.

Connecting the ships. It’s a spirit, but it's a spell. It has a rigid, specific purpose… and not to destroy…

An opening in the railing was big enough for the snake to cross without incident, wrap around the pirate ship’s main mast, curl around another, then begin back toward the Strip. All the while, attacks from the crew and marines didn’t seem to be doing much of anything to it.

Canmore ran up to a section and brought the greatsword down upon it — it thwacked and stuck into the bloodless dense flesh deeply, and he almost lost his weapon as it continued rapidly slithering on its path and ‘unconstricting.’ He managed to finally pull the blade free after being dragged along, right before he was slammed into the railing.

Fuck, I don’t know if we can deal with this thing. It’s like an Avatar, almost.

She sent to her Followers, “Stop attacking the snake! Keep fighting the pirates and prepare for boarding!”

Soon, Orswyth and Canmore were calling out the same orders.

Sammy sent a query to Bast, “Is your sound blast in range now?”

“Barely! I’m on the wrong side of the damn ship! And I’m not leaving the circle. I can hit the edge… but I worry about that shaman countering…”

Telekek was not acting, just watching the snake, waiting…

“On a count of three, I hit her with an Icebolt, you drop your sound blast to deal the most damage you can. One… Two…”

An Icebolt blasted the shaman, who predictably summoned her energetic shield to block it — simultaneously, Bast unleashed his AoE spell Chiming Sphere in the midst of packed-together pirate fighters clearly readying to board. It was a deafening explosion of sound, like a bomb going off — a chime to shake the heavens.

Five or six pirates were downed in an instant, to a brief cheer from the Strip. Even more in the general vicinity seemed temporarily dazed, and probably struck deaf.

Meanwhile, fighting only continued — archers trading arrows, crews running around dealing with any fires started. Diligently, the crew of the non-destroyed ballista had reloaded the device despite being right next to a giant glowing snake body. They fired, striking a pirate square on the other side, and through him to injure another.

Wraevaus threw his axe again — a soldier tried to block it with a shield, and the axe split and shattered it to carry through into the man’s chest, almost cleaving through him. As he dropped, the axe spun back out and returned to its owner’s hand. Calls were soon going out not to try that again.

“I can drop another, Goddess!” Bast sent.

“Again, then!” Samantha called. “One… Two…”

Telekek was not waiting this time, though. She lifted her hand full of talismans and a little bull’s head made of painted wood glowed bright and grew to a great size. The head snorted, blowing sparkling steam from its nostrils that enveloped the boarding crew…

The Icebolt passed right through the ghostly mystical image to slam into Telekek squarely and explode, causing her to cry out and reel backward, the platform shifting and carrying her through the air. She grimaced in pain as she held her chest.

Wraevaus erupted in laughter at her. “Shake it off!”

Bast’s spell went off… and was dampened inside of that sparkling mist lingering over the Naugite warriors. They were tossed to the deck, but got up soon after, shaking it off with minor injuries.

“Magic Resistance,” Bast sent like a curse. “Don’t bother with spells on them now. Hit the archers. Most weren’t in radius. Well, hmm, actually…”

“I’m almost out of mana anyway.”

“I can use Forcebolt for a while longer. Manastone.”

“Handy.”

“Come to our world, and I’ll buy you one.”

“I don’t think I should be accepting jewelry from you…”

“Oh come now, it’s just the beautiful having beautiful-”

“Bast, people are dying here! Focus!”

“This is a stand-off. She knows I’ll fire when she casts… she thinks the Icebolt will come too, she can’t block both… she can’t keep taking wounds… neutralizing her is the best strategy.”

The spirit constrictor smashed through the railing and wrapped around and around the Strip’s other mast… then it began flexing, and the two ships were inevitably being drawn together.

In a brief moment of time, the snake’s eyes were looking right into Orswyth’s staff head, and Samantha realized she could target it.

What the hell — worth a shot.

She tried Mazing it.

Predictably, the entity shrugged it off with ease. But then it touched minds with her, with a feeling of mild surprise. “A goddess? Hello.”

Sammy struggled to adjust and respond. “Ah… hello there. What’s your name?”

It seemed amused. “What’s yours?”

“Touché. Could you release my ship, please?”

“Sure. Later.”

“I mean right now.”

“So hasty! That’s impossible. This is an old contractual obligation.”

“I see. Then could you at least not destroy it or hurt the crew?”

“Well, of course not. That would be rude, and outside of the contract besides. The only thing that died was that wooden something-or-other. It was either some silly weapon or a statue. Am I close? Anywho. A rather smooth execution if I do say so myself.”

“I suppose so. Well… thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

Samantha also noticed her other Maze targets had passed by the second test without her even noticing… one had resisted and broke free, while the other two were stuck and it looked like they were entirely absorbed and consumed in their new reality. She was sure their chances at the coming final test were exceptionally slim.

Belief-centered… or at least, that’s one tactic to override their will. It’s probably easier to torture wantonly to break the mind, but I’m not gonna go Hellraiser on people. I can even give them a break as soon as the tests are done…

Thoughts on what to do with them at that juncture was something she punted, though.

In the stand-off, Telekek had been descending the back castle on her floating platform, still obviously in pain from the wounds and the malus of Icebolt… shortly after reaching the main deck, she disappeared from view into the alcove underneath the castle.

“Damn it!” Bast exclaimed aloud. “That’s cheating!”

“She’s going to heal and self-buff,” Sammy sent. “Take advantage of the time.”

In the time before the ships converged, another shot from some of the enemy crossbows came — this time casualties were mitigated by some of them being destroyed, some not loaded yet from harassing the loaders, and some from everyone dodging instead of blocking with shields.

Though the pirate vessel had a scary number of fighting men ready to board with axes, maces, spears, and shields brandished, the Strip began to outnumber them in archers from the attrition dealt. Bast finished off another, and then he targeted a crow’s nest, blowing it to hell, damaging the mast, and sending two Naugites to fall — one to their death, though the other managed to catch themselves on rigging, his bow and arrows dropping nonetheless.

I kind of want Forcebolt now. But I bet it doesn’t have that nasty malus.

Warnings were called right before impact… with a crash and groan, with a terrible rocking jolt to knock anyone unready to the deck, the two ships came together by the raw power of a spirit snake constricting to make it so. Then there was a surge of men and bristling weapons to the railing, warcries and taunts resounding in the torch and lantern-lit night.

Sammy knew it was time to make what use she could of her illusions… she’d held off because only sheer subtlety could go undetected for any length of time. But Telekek wasn’t present. The key moments to make or break had arrived again.

____________________________________________________________

« Chapter 65 | Table of Contents | Chapter 67: A Berserker Unleashed »

____________________________________________________________

======================================================

======================================================

____________________________________________________________

Samantha, Virgin Goddess of Mirrors & Illusion
____________________________________________________________

Goddess Level 2; Minor Deity

Domains (2/3): Mirrors, Illusion
Faith Energy: 1088/2000
FE (Illusion): 3
Followers: 18 (Daily FE Gain: 24 [26])

Devout: 3
Priests: 3

Brute: 0
Rogue: 0
Wizard: 1 [8/20]
Bard: 0 [2/10]

MP: 4/25

Special Skills: First Aid, Tarot Reading, Priestly Ordination, Holy Relic Investiture, Read Runes, Spell Construction, Detect Magic

Special Traits: Token User, Immortal, Demiplane Domain, Conceptual Body, Fueled By Faith

Spells: Identify (5 MP), Icebolt (3 MP)

Powers: Faith Energy Utilization, Grant Prayer (Illusion), Mirror Sense, Mirror Communication, Create Illusion, Grant Invisibility, Dazzling Spectrum, False Auras, Mirroring Duplicates, Reflect Force, Mirror Maze

Status: Token User Promotional Bonus (7/30), New Deity Grace Period (7/7), Free Minor Divine Enchantment (Accessory; 1-use)

Quests By Chapter