Chapter 6: Combat
[Your lungs fill with the tangy sea breeze as you stand over your first fallen foe. You have slain a salt-nymph, resident defender of the underwater City of Saldoras, with his very own trident. +20 Essence. -10 reputation with all Saldorians. Would you like to loot the Saldorian Myrmidon, yes/no?]
Now properly clad in some decent starter armor, Carth took up the double-ended spear and glanced at his two companions for an idea of what to do next.
Tiloa had her eyes closed and was ensconced with both a green and a purple glow.
Krieg was busy fiddling with a golden mechanical sphere.
“What’s that?” Carth asked the satyr.
“It’s mine is what it is.”
“I wouldn’t dream of taking it, I’m just asking what it is.”
Krieg sighed and tossed it to Carth. “Just as well. I’ve no idea what it is, just that it’s what this lot was looking for. The second one found it right before I clobbered him. Looked downright relieved. But I don’t have the foggiest idea what it is. You might as well keep it.”
Carth had caught the sphere deftly and been trying to examine it as Krieg spoke. The item card just came back as [???] no matter what he did.
“Well, thanks I guess. But I don’t have anywhere to keep it.”
Krieg pulled a pouch off of his belt and tossed it to him. “There. Found that on the first pointy. Should hold that thing, and most anything else you want to keep.”
Carth snagged the [Holding Pouch] out of the air with a smile, already knowing what the item was. Bags (or pouches, satchels, etcetera) of ‘holding’ could contain far more than their minimal size suggested. Even a small one such as this was invaluable.
He dropped the curious sphere inside the pouch and clipped it to his belt, already wondering what sort of loot he would fill it with in the coming days. An idea struck him and he glanced back towards the cells.
“How long until we are good to climb?” He asked Tiloa.
“Thirty seconds out. Whatever you’re going to do, do it fast.”
A timer appeared in his peripheral, counting down from 29. Carth left the spear against a crate and took off at a sprint. At 20 seconds left to go, he made it back to the brig.
He collected all three Turmantium shackles and shoved them inside his new pouch along with the key. With 12 seconds left to go, he booked it back to the cargo hold.
Tiloa and Krieg were already halfway up the ladder as the timer hit zero.
The pair stopped just shy of the hatch as Carth snatched the spear back up and struggled to catch up to them.
“Hold on. Catch your breath. They’re waiting for the right moment to strike,” Tiloa whispered down to them.
“Who’s waiting?”
The ship shuddered with a new kind of impact. By now Carth had grown used to the waves, but this was something new entirely.
“You’ll see.”
Two more impacts rocked the ship, and Tiloa nodded.
“Time to go.”
She led the way up through the hatch and Krieg followed.
Carth climbed up last and found himself emerging onto the deck of a storm-tossed vessel under siege by sea-nymphs astride giant crustaceans. All across the main deck, the gold-skinned sailors and armored hoplites alike were fighting back the waves of enemies as they crawled up the sides of the vessel.
The crabs themselves were each the size of a chariot, their jagged legs sharp enough to impale any sailor unlucky enough to get close, and their massive arms strong enough to crush an elf completely flat.
But worse than the crabs were the beings riding them. Clad in thick rope and bands of seaweed, adorned in shells and bones, dozens of teal-skinned warriors dropped from the netting-covered shells of their assault crabs and attacked with reckless abandon. Tridents, nets, and serrated swords made short work of the unarmed elven sailors and pushed back their Hoplite defenders.
One unfortunate Hoplite rushed past Carth and his companions without even noticing them, shield and spear pumping at his sides as he charged forward and issued a bellowing challenge. The Hoplite took a running leap, kicked off part of the ship’s masts to gain height, and started to come down spear-first upon an assault crab.
A sea-nymph fighter below him lifted a hand and a great swirl of seawater rose from the sopping wet deck; firing into the man’s face and forming a bubble around his head.
The Hoplite’s spear skittered off the crab’s shell and he was swatted aside by one of the mighty arms to crash down upon the deck; left to drown several meters above sea level as the orb of water stuck in place no matter how much he struggled or tried to wipe the water away with his hands.
Content filter or no, this battle was sickening in a way Carth was not prepared for.
“This way!” Tiloa’s voice told him, though a glance in her direction showed Carth that her mouth did not move. She led the way towards the prow of the ship, avoiding the pockets of intense fighting as best she could. It helped that the ship’s dorsal hull created a natural dry spot down the center of the deck, with water (and enemies) only able to enter from the six entry points along the sides of the vessel.
Krieg and Carth were left to defend her as, within the chaos of battle, a few fighters spotted them and headed their way. The elves that caught sight of them recognized them as escaping prisoners whilst the attacking nymphs just saw more trespassers upon their waters.
Krieg took down three fighters before Carth ever needed to join the fray.
A [Sea-nymph Myrmidon] with teal skin and a kilt made of giant, reflective fish scales caught his attention as Krieg was busy dueling two elves at once.
The nymph rushed towards Carth and launched its trident forward in a flurry of strikes. Carth rode the ship’s swaying deck as waves pummeled it mercilessly, and barely avoided the first two attacks.
The third attack sliced open his left bicep, chipping off 2% of his health and forcing Carth to question if full immersion in a violent world was worth the price of admission as the pain from the cut made him grit his teeth and take a step back.
But the pain brought with it a kind of focus all its own.
He may have lied (by omission) about his skills with a blade, but Carth knew a thing or two about fighting. One didn’t survive in the big city for as long as he had without knowing how to take a hit and keep on swinging.
He fired back with his stolen dori, a single thrust aimed for the sea-nymph’s center mass.
Instead of driving his opponent back as he had hoped, the nymph simply raised his left arm. A vambrace adorned with some sort of aquatic skull glowed with a blue inner light and a translucent round shield sprang to life.
Carth’s spear sunk into the shield, which he realized too late was made of swirling seawater, and stuck fast as the water froze around the spear shaft.
The sea-nymph pivoted, pulling both his shield and Carth’s spear back with the same motion that he used to drive his trident towards Carth’s throat.
Cutting his losses, Carth abandoned the spear entirely and stumbled back a step. The trident failed to reach as far as the nymph had hoped, stopping just short of skewering Carth’s neck.
The myrmidon angrily flicked the watery shield away, letting the spear clatter to the deck as he darted forward and tried again with his trident.
Carth had no time to pull his xiphos and could only dodge to the side. A single moment of clarity struck as the trident missed him by a slim margin and paused for the barest hint of a second within reach before the nymph could draw it back.
He clasped one hand around the metallic shaft of the trident and cast the only spell that he knew.
An icy rush of mana surged through his body and leapt down his arm, through his hand, and into the trident. A crackling [Jolt] split the air and left the faint scent of ozone as the [Bronze Trident] in his grasp acted as the perfect conductor and fried the sea nymph’s hand.
Yelping in pain, the nymph released his weapon and recoiled several steps. His health bar dropped by a full third and a dizzying [Stunned] icon appeared above his head.
Carth spun the trident around and grabbed it with both hands; guiding the sharpened prongs deep into the sea-nymph’s chest and depleting the warrior’s health bar the rest of the way.
Unlike when he had knocked the Hoplite unconscious down in the cargo hold, this time he got a notification.
[You skewered a Lvl 2 Saldorian Myrmidon! +20 Essence. Read more…]
Carth examined the rest of the notification as he swung the trident first one way and then the other, wrenching the weapon free of the sea nymph’s body. The moment the trident’s prongs were free, the body dissolved into vaporous blue and white energy that flowed to Carth and sunk into his skin.
[Your lungs fill with the tangy sea breeze as you stand over your first fallen foe. You have slain a salt-nymph, resident defender of the underwater City of Saldoras, with his very own trident. +20 Essence. -10 reputation with all Saldorians. Would you like to loot the Saldorian Myrmidon, yes/no?]
Chapter 7: Fight or Flight
[It has been a red day upon this emerald sea. You have stained the deck with the blood of elves and sea nymphs alike in your quest for freedom and absorbed their very Essence into your being. You have reached Level 2, the first of many steps in your odyssey across Triskelion, and earned 3 Stat Points to improve your mortal shell along with 5 Skill Points to aid in your journey. Use them well, Seeker.]
As far as combat tutorials went, battling across a storm-tossed Elven vessel under siege by sea nymphs while trying to escape was probably in Carth’s top three.
Carth planted his stolen trident into its third victim and left it there, its handle pointed towards the ship’s armored canopy. An orange slashing icon appeared in the periphery of his HUD, growing larger by the instant and accompanied by an arrow pointing behind him.
Unsheathing his xiphos and spinning around, he raised the blade just in time to block a slash from an [Elven Hoplite, Savage] who had lost his shield and was instead wielding a pair of xiphos swords.
The golden elf hissed angrily and pressed the attack.
It was all Carth could do to match the elf blow for blow, sometimes only barely moving his sword into position before the elf shifted into his next attack. Each motion looked neatly executed and perfectly balanced.
Carth was outclassed.
His [Jolt] spell was still on cooldown, and his allies were both engaged in their own battles.
He blocked three more blows before he spotted it. The elf had fallen into a practiced, and therefore predictable, pattern. Two chest-high cuts followed by a thrust towards the gut and either a low slash or an overhead swing. Back and forth.
Carth blocked the next two slashes and sidestepped the thrust entirely. Acting swiftly he threw his weight into a kick that connected with the elf’s armored side and completely unseated him. The elf slammed against the railing and one of his swords went skittering across the deck.
On his HUD his Focus bar dipped slightly for the first time.
Carth fell upon the elf blade-first, ending their fight.
[You executed a Savage Elven Hoplite! +30 Essence.]
With each kill and each point of Essence he absorbed, Carth could feel his body shifting. He wielded his weapons not with his own clumsy instincts but with fractions of the collected instincts of those he had slain. This was the first enemy to grant him more than 20 Essence, and as this was his fifth kill in total, he had now collected a total of 110 Essence, putting him above the 100-Essence threshold to reach his next level.
[Level 2! 3 Stat Points Available. 5 Skill Points Available. Read more…]
“Hey, air-head! Hurry up!” Krieg shouted; stopping Carth from reading more about his first level-up.
Carth retrieved his trident and followed his satyr companion up onto the raised forwardmost section of the massive ship where the fighting was the lightest.
With the myrmidons and the elves primarily focused on the stern, the front of the ship was relatively unoccupied.
Tiloa reached out with a claw-like gesture and sent forth a purple wave of psionic energy that toppled an assault crab, two myrmidons, and a hoplite over the railing and out into the unrelenting Viridian Sea.
A Saldorian sorcerer lifted a driftwood staff and pointed it their way.
Tilloa flicked her wrist in his direction. A purple glow enveloped a fallen dori, lifting it off the ground and hurling it straight through the Saldorian sorcerer’s heart in the blink of an eye.
As the sea nymph dropped to the deck, dead, that same purple glow highlighted his driftwood staff and dragged it into Tilloa’s waiting hand. The dryad gave the weapon an experimental whirl and nodded to herself, satisfied.
Psionics aren’t your strong suit, huh?
Krieg launched three throwing knives and ended three lives.
Carth took out an unarmored sailor by hurling his trident through the man’s chest and then used his xiphos to decapitate a level 1 myrmidon who was already mortally wounded for a combined total of 10 Essence.
Diminishing returns, much?
With that, the prow was theirs.
Tiloa gave the satyr and air nymph at her sides a serious look. “My part in this fight is over. It now falls to the two of you to hold off anything that comes our way. I’ll need a few minutes to prepare for our escape. Once it starts, it might draw some attention. Keep them off of me if you want to live. You’ve been warned.” With that, the dryad turned her back upon the rest of the ship, threw out her hands to either side, and began casting.
A transparent green circle traced itself around her from three points of origin. Spiraling lines branched out from each of these points to not only seal the circle but also began intersecting and forming a strange runic pattern that neither Krieg nor Carth could decipher. A defensive dome rose up from the circle and sealed Tiloa away from them as the spell she was casting grew in complexity.
[Quest Updated: Birds of a Feather. Defend the Archivist until her ritual is complete. Ritual Progress: 4%. Waves 0/3 Complete.]
“Eyes up, airhead. The lass is drawing a crowd.”
At Krieg’s warning, Carth turned back to see the sea-nymph myrmidons catching sight of the glowing green dome of magic and getting curious.
One of the nymphs which rode upon a larger-than-average assault crab blew into a war horn made from shell. The myrmidon forces split at her signal. One-third of the myrmidons and a pair of crabs abandoned the assault on the Elven formation defending the stern and came rushing towards Tiloa and her pitiful pair of defenders.
Faced with impossible odds, Carth did what any gamer would do. He opened up his Stat Sheet and was greeted by a level-up prompt.
[It has been a red day upon the Emerald Sea. You have stained the deck with the blood of elves and sea nymphs alike in your quest for freedom and absorbed their very Essence into your being. You have reached Level 2, the first of many steps in your odyssey across Triskelion, and earned 3 Stat Points to improve your mortal shell along with 5 Skill Points to aid in your journey. Use them well, Seeker.]
With a grin, Carth got to work distributing his new points.
At level 2 he did not have much to work with and had very little time to make decisions. He distributed one point each to Psyche, which would improve his mana recharge rate and hopefully let him use [Jolt] again sooner rather than later, Grit, which would help him not lose stamina so fast and let him fight for longer, and Strength, which would improve both his damage output and give him a little more Hp to work with.
For skills, he had five points and only three options unlocked so far. The first was simply labeled Sorcery, which he dumped two points into on principle and was rewarded with a damage boost to his [Jolt] spell. The next was Stealth. Which would not do him any good in a stand-up, knock-down fight like the one coming his way. And Persuasion, which had the same issue.
Unless…
“Hey Krieg, stupid question time. You got any illusions that might help us out here?”
“One or two, air-head. But help might be a strong word. I might be able to make them think there are more of us, make them think they hear their commander calling them back to the other end of the boat, but I can’t make them see a dire bear.”
“Why not?”
“Is now really the time you want to be discussing the finer points of illusion magic?”
“Just humor me, I have something in mind.”
“Fine! I can’t make people see something that doesn’t make sense. Illusion spells are like lies. The easiest lies are the ones that already feel like they should be the truth.”
Carth read between the lines there and realized that the game probably considered illusion work to be a matter of both persuasion and magical skill. Which he could work with.
He dumped all three remaining points to Persuasion and started looking around the deck.
His eyes fell upon a tattered white cloak that was pinned to the deck by a trident.
“Alright, little buddy. Here’s the plan.”
-
Carth stepped from around the forward mast and raised his trident high. He had shrouded himself with the torn Hoplite cloak to make himself appear more wizardly. Calling upon every decibel he could summon, he bellowed into the heavens.
“MALEVOLENT MISTS OF MALKOTHEN, HEAR ME AND OBEY! CURSE THESE HEATHENS AND CLOUD THEIR VISION!”
Side note.
In between the release of the second and third original Triskelion Saga titles, there was a mobile game called “The War for Qroi” released to the Eye-ris Play Store. In it, gamers would play as various gods shuffling around decks of cards that represented the forces of their army and the godly boons they could grant them to help them achieve victory. Any time a player used a boon card, some sorcerer or cleric in their army would make some grandiose call to their god just like the one Carth was making, and a little holographic dice would roll. If the player rolled high enough the card would play and the high-level spell would immediately take effect. If they failed their roll their army would be afflicted by whatever boon they had tried to play, which could be devastating.
Sadly, no holographic dice rolled in front of Carth’s vision this time around, but that was fine. He did not expect it to work for him as he was no Dark Priest of Malkothen.
But, importantly, the encroaching horde of myrmidons did not know that.
Krieg, having climbed a short distance up the forward mast, still below the armored canopy, to get into a better position, cast a major illusion. As such a large spell was at the absolute fringe of his level 6 abilities, he had warned Carth that the desired illusion might not work at all.
Thankfully, with a little help from Carth’s theatrics, it worked this time.
A billowing fog suddenly erupted from amongst the myrmidon’s ranks. It quickly rose above head height and grew to cover almost the entire approaching force of roughly two dozen warriors.
[Persuasion Succeeded x19]
[Persuasion Failed x3]
Carth flung the trio of smoke bombs Krieg had stuffed in his hand a moment ago into the crowd, adding to the chaos and confusion and hoping that he managed to capture whichever three myrmidons he had failed to convince in their blast radius.
“Now!” Krieg shouted as he dropped from the mast and plunged into the billowing mist and clogging smoke.
Carth leveled his trident and charged, dropping into a stealth crouch as he did so and letting the tattered cloak flap free in the breeze. Since no one could see him; his stealth bonus was applied. The deck of the ship became desaturated as he and Krieg slipped into the midst of the blind and panicking warriors and began to dispatch them.
Carth gained two ranks in Stealth and killed a dozen myrmidons all on his own in a very short time span.
Krieg took down the rest, along with both of the [Viridian Battlecrabs] before Carth could help any further.
When the smoke and illusory fog settled, they were the only two beings left alive.
[Quest Updated: Birds of a Feather. Ritual Progress 21%. Wave 1/3 Complete]
[You slaughtered 10 Saldorian Myrmidons, Lvl 2 and 3 Saldorian Myrmidons, Lvl 3. +160 Essence]
[Level 3! 3 Stat Points Available. 5 Skill Points Available.]
Carth took a deep breath as he came to two difficult realizations. Firstly, that would likely be the last time he leveled up twice in such a short time span. And secondly, as he looked back across the ship towards the large forces of sea nymphs and golden elves alike, he realized that the next two waves would not be so easily defeated.
Carth accessed the inventory and his eyes glazed over the descriptions of the light armor the man wore and jumped right to what he wanted. The [Tidelock Vambrace, Uncommon, Runic, Insight Status 0%] transferred directly from the myrmidon’s arm to Carth’s inventory.
That was all the looting he had time for before a second and third attacker tore his attention away and forced him to continue the fight.
