Michael Chatfield
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Ilus Rises: Chapter 8 Part 2 of 2
🕑 Added 2024-01-12 12:00:03 +0000 UTCMya drank in the smell of powder as they cleared the plume of gunsmoke.
“Nothing like powder in the morning!” Mya called out. The oars set back to their normal pace instead of their cannon rows, counteracting the recoil of the cannons.
Not a bad shot all by myself. Bedrick would be near beside himself for the first half dozen shots that she’d used to range her shots.
Parts of the first ship rained down on the water.
Petor and Valter worked the cannons, a wet rag covered brush wipe before a brushing followed with powder and cannonball.
They leapfrogged up the starboard side of the ship.
“Coming up on second target!”
Water spouted as the ship’s rear cannons fired, the shots disappearing into the deep, trying to turn to bring their broadside to bear, turning away from the second merchant ship they’d been chasing.
“Didn’t get any experience from that first ship,” Desari said.
“Too low leveled for us to earn anything,” Mya said, it had been the case for her for years.
Mya squinted at the second ship, putting her boot between the helm’s rungs and drawing her spyglass.
She felt the roll of the deck, adjusting the elevation on her forward-most cannons on the main and lower gun decks.
“Brace!” Petor and Valter held onto the cannons they were working on. She felt them through Mesurial while her eye was glued to her spyglass.
“Fire!”
The first two guns fired, the mass of the ship barely shifting.
“Splash! Down fifty!”
The second cannons tilted and fired.
They cut through the top decks and disappeared below, good but not the damage she wanted.
“Hit! Down Twenty five!”
Nearly a hundred thirty cannons adjusted their elevations.
“Fire!”
Lower gun deck, main gun deck, rippling fire ran across her hull sending the cannons hurtling back into their pulley system.
Smoke wreathed the decks as hits struck the rear of the pirate ship, disappearing under the spray of wood.
Spells started detonating, adding to the destruction.
“Hold piercing shot!”
Parts of the enchanted cannons dulled and the cannon balls stopped showing imprinted spells upon them.
Shots hit home with the ship, it stopped moving under any kind of control.
Their defense against spells evaporated.
The ship burst apart from the inside, flame finding a powder magazine, the ship detonated, the remaining powder going up, the ships splintered remains raining from the sky as what remained of its hull dipped, falling below the waves.
Mya turned to the first ship. “Rise.”
The dead stirred, connections snapping into place. “Kill all that remain.”
She lowered her spyglass, eyes lit with white flame.
The first two ships were dealt with, but there was still the third, the crew still engaged with the merchants in boarding actions.
The angles were shit, she didn’t have a shot between the two pirate ships to hit the third and there was a chance she’d hit the merchant ship it was up against and boarding.
Swinging around north is going to pitch their port broadside against our starboard. Petor and Valter had only reloaded half of the upper gun deck. There were still three more to go. Go in with maybe two decks worth of cannons loaded.
Looping back down to the south, they’d catch the wind instead of fighting against it. Though they’d come around the merchant ship. It was covering half of the pirate ship, giving them cover, but also only allowing them to bring half of their broadside to bear and she wouldn’t have to worry about hitting the damn merchants.
Its going to cost us in time.
“Prepare to come about! We’ll head North East with the wind, come around the Spindle merchant ship to lay our portside guns into the last pirate.”
Desari shifted her spells and the momentum of the wind as Desari spun the helm, the oars altered their strokes as they turned tight to starboard.
Mesurial carved through the waves, her sails catching the normal wind throwing her into her turn even more.
Mya swung the helm back as they came onto her new direction.
Desari’s wind made the masts creak as their speed increased.
“Continue loading the starboard guns, never know if we’ll need them.”
The wind whipped across the ship, the damned’s rowing in monotonous and inevitable. She could bring the dead back, but none of the merchants were marked so she’d have to guide the undead with more complex commands.
Come on, Mesurial, give us some speed.
A horn called across the waters, making them tremble without a sound to the ear.
Mya twisted the spyglass, zooming in on the rear of the ship.
The Captain had a horn that appeared to be made of blackened stone. The waters around his ship vibrating and shuddering.
“He’s summoning something!”
Pressure change, something coming. A part of her mind that wasn’t her mind.
Hatches slammed open and cranes moved on their own, reaching down into the depths of the holds.
“Petor! Valter! Get into the crates, we got a half dozen somethings coming at us from every direction. Ready depth charges.” Damn this is a lot of mana.
The things passed into her range.
“Petor! Drain the damn place, pour the power into me. We’re going to need it.” She yelled over the clicking of crane gears as crates just barely smaller than the hold were drawn up and out.
“They’re sending Legendary creatures at us!”
The crates locked into place on the cranes, the siding fell away revealing a metal sphere with a rounded glass window covered in runes, two barrels just underneath it. It hung from a bracket that allowed the turret to move in any direction.
Valter and Petor finished loading their cannons and ran to the orbs.
They climbed up and into the orbs, the hatches closed and sealed behind them.
Runes lit up the cranes as they lifted the orbs clear of the deck and turned over the side of the ship. Extending like wings.
Creatures breached the water, shooting up several meters. Their bodies covered in natural blued armor, their heads sharpened into terrible rending rams. Their short but powerful limbs propelling them through the water.
They slipped back into the water like darts.
“Ever seen something like those before?” Mya asked.
“Look like Bulette’s but their water cousins,” Desari said.
“Great, creatures that eat through the hardest rocks and metals in the ground. I’m betting they’re a bastard against warship varnish.” Mya affected a sigh.
“In the water I can hurt them. Though I can’t keep moving the ship.”
“Don’t worry, the turrets will have them,” Mya said.
Petor and Valter were moving around in them, swinging up above the crane arm to aim into the sky, then down to the waters.
“Mya, what do those turrets do?” Desari asked.
Petor triggered his turret.
Twin ghostly blasts hit the water without a ripple.
“They allow one to see through the water and the sky, they fire round shot that’s been runed to explode. They apply the spell Ghostly Shot that allows it to pass through the water unimpeded till it strikes something that isn’t water. Explosions and vaccums in water do nasty things to the creatures around them.”
“Armored as they are, the pressures exerted on their bodies are going to be much higher than a creature without natural armor,” Desari said.
“Yeah, though there’s eight headed our way and I think more are a’comin’.”
The sea trembled again with a noise Myacould hear with senses that weren’t her own. “We gotta kill that ship’s captain.”
***
Damn they’re moving fucking fast.
The runes on the glass showed ghostly outlined creatures as if the water didn’t exist.
Petor spread out his influence and drew in mana, threading it through his channels and to Mya’s thread, a piece to Desari as well.
Petor stepped on the right pedal, turning to the right, left, took him left.
“Guessing those fire the guns,” Petor kept his right forefinger and middle finger off of the stacked triggers.
He made sure he was pointing away from Mesurial. When he pushed the cog on the right thumbstick forward.
The view through the glass snapped forwards, doubling how far he could see each time.
The water distorted around each of the creatures, as they spat forward.
He pulled the left stick back, rotating up, forward for down. He turned the stick.
“Woah!” The whole crane arm rotated. “Forward for up, back for down.”
He moved the different sitcks and the feet pedals, moving them in concert till he could do both of them at the same time.
“Alright that makes sense then, lets test out these guns.”
A pull on the top trigger. The runes on the right barrel ignited and the round shot into the water, a faint green line marking its path. His middle finger firing the left gun.
Boxes behind the guns held the ammo, nestled next to his seat, able to be easily changed out when on deck by just opening the hatch.
Just how many secrets does this ship have?
“They’re coming into range! Remember they’re going to be far away so lead the shots, fire where they’re going to be,” Mya’s voice next to his ear.
Petor scanned his side of the ship, aiming at the closest creature.
He swore the damn things eye’s narrowed. It certainly sped up.
“Fuck this, fuck you and fuck this goddamn place. Just want a damn drink and a beach and a dozen-two dozen women wearing clothing I could use to pick my teeth. Why does this shit keep happening?”
“Cause life is meant to be exciting Petor! And will you shoot the damn things!”
“Can you not be listening all the time!”
“I have friends that are female,” Mya mused.
“I need to get out more.”
Mya laughed. “I don’t think you could get anymore out than this!”
Muttering indiscernible things he pulled the triggers.
Lines of green sped through the water, the orb rattling with the heavy and steady repetitive shots.
The creature roared, creating a blast of water infront of it that crashed into the rounds-and had about the effect of shit and all.
“That’s right yah fuck!”
Rounds impacted the beast and exploded, creating pockets of under pressure and overpressure, each pulling at the creature.
Its image dimmed and fluctuated. The hits continued, a dozen, then two dozen.
“Just fucking die will you!”
Its ghostly image flickered out and essence spread through his core. Well at least I’ll get something for this!
“One down!” He flicked the cog to zoom out, found his next target and fired. The shots missed as he adjusted with one or two rounds from each gun.
The creature weaved through the water, Petor followed, till they stilled and their color disappeared.
The orb swung as he locked onto his next target.
It breached the water, its ghostly image overlaying with its actual. It was the size of a row boat, the kind that could carry sixteen people and supplies.
He rotated up, and fired on the creature. The orb shuddered with the guns.
The rounds struck the creature, and ichor blew out of the openings in its armor, spraying over the water, detonations ripping through its insides.
“The hell?”
“The rounds will go through the first thing they touch, so water, or armor and then detonate on the next thing they hit.” Mya said.
Two more breached the water. Petor worked his turret.
“Oh, you just fucked up so hard and you don’t know it.” He raked them. They were nimble and deadly in the waters, but in the air, they were slave to the same physics as all others.
“Port forward! Petor!”
Petor rotated the orb back down as he turned on his pedals.
A creature breached the water on a low angle, and ran on the water that smoothed ahead of it.
It opened its large mouth.
A beam of water gathered and shot out of its mouth, hitting the ship with such force that it rocked to the side, carving a line through the wooden exterior into the gun deck on the other side.
Its blast played along the side, carving a line along the ship towards Petor’s turret.
Petor corrected as the ship rolled back. “Fucker!” He adjusted again, an exercise in movement for his feet and left arm as he fired on the creature, raking it with rounds.
The creature’s natural armor served to confine the blast within itself as had happened with its allies.
Its jet cut off and it collapsed into the water, no longer magically upheld.
“Coming from underneath, depth charges away!”
Barrels propelled by spells dropped out of the underside of the ship.
Jets of disturbed water shot out of the half dozen creatures aiming for the ship’s underside.
Damn he summoned a lot of them!
One barrel wass struck, making the explosions of the rounds he’d been firing look like play-things.
Water fountained out of the sea as they went off.
The pressure did terrible things to the creatures, emulsifying their insides.
Petor turned and fired o those that weren’t stupid enough to come fo the bottom of Mesurial.
A chain blurred across his sight as an anchor smashed into into a beast, cracking its side and leaking blood into the waters.
Mesurial’s four chains shot out like tentacles, bashing and smashing anything that came in too close.
“Coming to port!” Mya yelled.
The ship carved through the waters, coming two hundred meters past the starboard side of the merchant ship.
The first pirate ship they’d engaged burning as people of living blue light and those of undead white clashed with one another.
A Bulette shot out of the water for the side of the ship, opening its mouth for an attack.
Petor raked it with shots, the orb whirring as he tracked and fired on the bastards.
“Ready port guns, all decks!”
The hatches opened along the ship as one, the cannons rolling forward, just under Petor’s orb.
“Just what I wanted, a front row seat to being in the middle of a fucking cannon battle.”
“It’s called a ship battle, cannons are just a part of it.”
“Not helping Mya!” Petor yelled back, taking out another Bulette and searching for another.
“Well at least you’re helping us get some experience!”
Petor’s rush of words and frustration boiled into hot air coming out in half formed vowels.
“We’re going to give them a broadside and then carve around their bow. Kill their captain if you can, that should deal with the summons,” Mya said. “And watch your aim, don’t shoot the merchant ship!”
“Aye aye-“ The cannons near the bow came into sight of the pirate ship and whatever Petor had been thinking or about to say disappeared under their thunder.
Mesurial leaned into the turn as the cannon’s fire brough the ship back. Cannon balls went through the enemy ship’s hull, detonating within.
Hits thudded into Mesurial’s hull, marring and carving out splinters.
Holes started to appear in the ship’s hull. Petor gritted his teeth aimed at the pirate ship and raked along the deck, focusing on the outlines of those alive. The smoke and splinters so thick he couldn’t see through them without the runed sight.
The water plumed around the ship, from depth charges going off once again.
Petor raked the upped deck near the helm, getting a flush of experience.
“The beasts are turning away!” Mya cried.
The pirate’s cannons were silent as Mesurial came around the ship. Half of her cannons still ready.
“this is gonna hurt,” Petor grimaced as Mya laid shots that left the hull unmarred, down the bow through the ship. Splinters flew out of hatches, advancing through the ship from bow to stern.
“Hold fire!” Mya said.
Petor searched for blue lights of life, drawing in as much power as he could and forcing it to Mya.
His range had increased with his core grade as had the amount he could draw in and direct. Mya felt bottomless to him as he continued to drink in the mana spreading from the fight.
White light ignited within several bodies that started to move once again and attack the blue lights.
The creatures in the water no longer commanded by the undead captain, who was wading through his own crew using water tentacles, had fled and none of them were moving close to the ship anymore. Bodies were started to float to the surface, their armor unmarred as they leaked ichor into the water.
The merchant crew let out yells, as they finished off the last of the pirates that had made it aboard their ships.
The sounds of fighting came to an end on the last ship and the crane rotated into the Mesurial and lowered Petor down.
The ship creaked and groaned under Petor’s feet. The wood sounded like a thousand bristles rubbing against one another as it regrew.
“Get reloading those cannons,” Mya said. “Starboard first, we still have half of the port side, take a deck each. Once we’ve got that, there are reloads for the turrets at the base of the crane, take out the old boxes, put in the new ones. I’m going to nab us those ships.”
“Mya you think you can get me over to that merchant ship,” Petor asked. “I’ll help out with their wounded.”
“Fine, but only if you promise me to wear your armor like a good little boy.”
“Can you?”
“Promises promises!”
“Fine, I promise to wear my armor, just get me close enough that I don’t sink to the bottom of the damn water plane.”
