Dungeon Champions

I slammed into Britney the instant before she would have gone overboard. My weight, coupled with momentum, was enough to drag the tentacle just low enough for me to catch the ship’s rail with a booted foot. A few inches of wood were all that kept us both from going overboard.

One arm wrapped around the tentacle as well as Britney’s torso, I felt the girl’s Thorns effect shroud me, adding retributive damage to whatever the monster did.

At first, I intended to use my sword, but with one hand holding onto my teammate, I had no leverage. Dismissing the blade, I jammed my palm against a sucker-spike.

It hurt, but it also damaged the monster.

At the same time, I felt a surge of healing that didn’t come from any of the women. Realization struck and I burst out laughing, roaring, “Go Skullie go!”

The lich was somewhere underwater, using my borrowed strength to grind his jaws on the leviathan, dealing enough ongoing damage to provide me with more necromantic healing than anything our team could currently produce.

Confident in my relative safety, I took the opportunity to jam my hand on sucker-spikes again and again.

A flash of motion out of the corner of my eye drew my attention briefly. I saw Sadie leap from some shadow and tackle Merielle, who’d begun to seize. The cat jammed her face into the water spell and opened her mouth.

Then the cat simply sucked the water down, drinking it as if she were a bottomless pit.

Merielle’s seizing ended at the same time the tentacle holding us finally relented, relaxing its hold on Britney. She fell to the deck, next to the elf, as it writhed to dislodge me as well.

I let it.

“Britney!” I called, “Heal Merielle.” A quick check of my Tablet showed the warrior was down to [7] hit points and had a status of [asphyxiated, exhausted, disoriented, and temporarily blind].

Nym’s spell ended, freeing the siren to act.

With a hiss, the spellcasting monster lifted her hands. A bolt of icy lightning, a configuration that I didn’t recognize, slammed into my chest. I felt my heart stop, as if the creature had used some sort of instant-death effect. Pain radiated from the point of impact, piercing through my defenses and rippling down my hands, making every nerve tingle.

I collapsed, an unfamiliar certainty slowing my thoughts.

“Blast you!” Nym screamed, sending another casting of Scouring Blast at the monster.

The siren wailed in anguish, throwing her arms up yet again.

Skullie’s necromantic healing ticked over again.

My heart thudded once. Twice. Then kicked back into rhythm. Whatever spell the monster had cast had failed, although I had the distinct impression that I was far, far lower on hit points than I’d ever been.

Not that it mattered.

Roaring, I came to my feet. When I did, I saw an unexpected opportunity. Lit by bright stars, I made out dozens of fins lurking in the distance. The predators were close, but dared not interfere with such titanic monsters.

What was it Zuri said during our date? Her mother had a seafood stew recipe!

Jordan: Zuri! Those fins in the ocean. Is there any chance you have pieces of them? To use in Questionable Attractant?

Zuri: Jordan! Yes, of course I do. I picked up shark fins in town.

Jordan: Put it in the water right over the side. Do it now!

There was a flash of magic as the gorgon used her class ability to instantly brew the recipe. She was already close to the edge of the boat, so pouring the contents of Quick Combine over the side took just a few breaths.

I leaped for the spellcaster, my armor absorbing the damage from Nym’s spell. The blast of the wind actually helped, giving me several extra feet of clearance and shoving me into the temporarily blinded siren.

Throwing a leg over the tentacle, I summoned both my Fast Sword of Bloodletting and my Accurate Dagger of Cruelty. Slamming the dagger into the siren’s side, I simultaneously drove the tip of my sword into the tentacle.

Distracted and vulnerable, the siren was unable to defend herself from the attack, which slid deeply into her chest. She shuddered, coughing up sand as she tried to breathe. One hand flexed, collecting magic that seemed to fizzle away, dissipating before she could weave it into a spell.

The smaller, more flexible tentacle was also less armored than the giant one still stretched across the deck. My sword went deep, cutting several inches into the meat and spilling blood into the ocean.

I was too busy to tell if Zuri’s attempt to help was doing anything, but splashes of movement from glowing shapes near the ship suggested something was happening.

The tentacle flexed, barbs hooking my thighs, forcing it to take a tiny amount of retributive damage, just as the Thorns effect wore off. A pulse of healing flowed through me, giving me the energy to continue working the dagger in the siren’s chest.

She slumped abruptly, going limp against my chest. I felt the tentacle began to retract. Dismissing my weapons, I grabbed the mage and kicked off, trying to reach the boat. The tentacle disappeared from beneath my thighs and I, along with my prize, fell toward the water.

I activated my Trackless Boots of Levitation at the last instant, landing an inch above the thrashing waves.

Before I had a chance to lose the corpse, I roared, “Here” and tossed the siren behind me, hard enough that the body flew over the railing. The spellcaster, along with her magical supplies, would be ours.

If we survived the rest of this attack.

Then I saw what Zuri’s potions had done.

According to the way I understood her concoction to work, her recipe should have been airborne. I had no idea what it would do in the water. As it turned out, thrashing water was an excellent distribution system for five potent doses of the chemical.

The sharks, or whatever they were, were swarming. No, they weren’t just swarming. Some of them were transforming, growing in size and ferocity as they breached the surface long enough for me to see them. Then they dove, attacking their new food source.

I couldn’t hear what was happening, but I could feel it in the water as it roiled beneath my feet. There was a flash of light as another spellcasting siren cast a spell. I thought it was probably the equivalent of an aquatic fireball.

It was enough to reveal what was happening.

Twenty or thirty sirens, including two of the spellcasters, were far beneath the boat. The titan’s tentacles, of which there were many more, lashed about, fighting off what seemed to be hundreds of sharks - some of which had grown in size and strength.

Compared to our shipboard battle, this was a war.

The leviathan ripped sharks apart, and the sirens darted around, using tridents or other weapons to attack the predators. In return, the largest of the sharks swallowed sirens whole, or bit massive chunks out of them.

Tentacles fell away, bitten clean in-two as the transformed, elite versions revealed strength to exceed my own.

Jordan: Skullie! Get out of there! Come on.

I felt my familiar acknowledge the call and saw his ghostly silhouette, still under the propulsion effect, dart out from a writhing nest of tendrils. He burst from the water, half of his teeth and bits of spine missing, but clearly exultant.

“I helped!” he called proudly, flying over to me.

“Go on up. See if you can’t help the girls,” I said, lifting my sword as a lashing tentacle neared my feet. I jabbed the point down, twisting with all my strength to open a new wound.

“It’s wounded,” my familiar pointed out. “You don’t have to stay here. There’s no way the sirens continue the attack now.”

I didn’t care. This attack wasn’t merely good; it was overwhelming. For them to have a spellcaster with instant-death effects, and a veritable army waiting for the boat to go under, told me one thing.

To ensure peace on the seas, I had to make sure they all died. Here and now.

Sensing my decision, my familiar bobbed a nod and flew up, over the edge of the boat.

An instant after he did, the water surged beneath my feat, boiling as something gargantuan began to surface. Looking down, I saw more flashes of underwater fire. They revealed that fewer than half of the sirens remained alive, and those who did were harried. The sharks had lost far more of their original number as well, but there were plenty surviving to finish the job.

That just left the…

The leviathan rose beneath me, its core mass backlit from underwater spells, and its surface suggested by starlight.

What I’d thought was a squid, maybe a mythical kraken, was not. What I saw in the flashes of light was an ancient man’s face, fifty feet across. His hair was gray and lank, and he had a beard that trailed in the water, bits of it folding over blubbery, split lips that parted to reveal jagged shark-like teeth. Eyes big enough to resemble moons glowed with blue-white light, casting shadows across a scarred nose. Beneath the head, I saw the tentacles. Dozens of them, all in different sizes, dangling.

As he surfaced, mouth open, I sensed a powerful intellect in the thing, and knew it recognized me for the one who had dealt so many small, bleeding cuts to it.

With a flourish, I retrieved Zuri’s Harmful Concoction.

The creature emerged, water streaming from his mouth. I danced across the water, nimbly positioning myself on one puffy lip. Balanced precariously, I withstood a blast of noxious air as the monster loosed a high-pitched, keening wail of anguish and rage. A lashing, serpentine tongue covered in barbed scales emerged, questing for me.

My gut told me that getting caught by that tongue and pinned between those teeth would be deadly, especially given how injured I was.

“Suck on this!” I snarled, pouring all five doses of Zuri’s potion directly into his mouth. Immediately after, I used my position and angle to jam my sword into his gums.

To my relief and instant gratification, the interior of his mouth was not armored. Blood, this time bright red and black, burst from the base of his teeth. Before the dangerous tongue could get to me, he snapped his jaws together, reflexively attempting to protect his face.

I held my sword in place, allowing my enemy to use his own force to carve a five-foot channel across his face.

With a squeal, the monster dove, the tentacles beneath his head flailing. My last sight of him was his bloodied face rapidly blackening as blisters arose from his cheeks.

Zuri’s poison deals between four-to-eight hit points per dose, I reasoned. That added up to at least twenty more points of damage, on top of whatever my sword had dealt. Not to mention the bleeding effects and the sharks.

This thing must have taken over four hundred hit points of damage by now.

The flurry of activity beneath me was slower than before. There was no siren song, nor were there any new flashes of spells. Three shark fins, all elites, surfaced not two hundred feet from me.

“Jordan, here!”

I looked up to see Merielle tossing down a line. She, along with several sailors, helped haul me back onto the boat.

As my feet touched the wooden planks, there was a popping, bursting sound from the water. We all turned in time to see the corpses of the trio of sharks burst to the surface. Between them, eyes open and sightless, was the monster.

“By the Fates,” a sailor swore, “that’s an Old Man of the Sea!”

I studied the face for a moment, then turned to survey the damage. Merielle was up, her face largely restored thanks to Britney’s fast healing. Our celestial healer was sitting, her clothes ripped from the rough handling of the tentacle. Bits of tanned flesh, raw and bleeding, were visible.

She took a lot of damage during that, I realized, followed by another revelation. The arrogant woman wasn’t healing herself. Did she use all her mana on Merielle?

If I wasn’t in the middle of an assessment, the thought might have shocked me into saying something. Instead, I looked for the rest of my team.

Nym, although shaken, stood next to a mast, her back firmly planted against the wood. She held Sadie, petting her cat. Cuddled against her owner, Sadie blinked at me, looking smug and self-satisfied. She opened her mouth, showing off her teeth in a manner that suggested she expected some sort of reward for her valiant efforts.

“You’ve earned it,” I said beneath my breath, turning my attention to our final member.

Zuri was next to me, one hand on my arm as she looked into the water. I got the impression that she was inspecting the aftermath with a critical eye.

“I’m going to need the sailors to help collect ingredients,” she murmured, squeezing my arm.

I laughed, then turned to see how the ship had fared.

Although there was a considerable amount of damage to the rails, one mast, and the rigging, it appeared most of the ship was intact. At first glance, it appeared that my team and I had managed to save every sailor, although I couldn’t be certain.

“If those sirens had all surfaced at once, we would have lost,” I mused to Zuri. “They relied on the monster, the Old Man, and a couple sirens to do the work.”

She replied, “It is easy for mortals to become overconfident, and even more so for monsters. Had we not been here, and as capable as we are, the ship would already be in the clutches of those creatures.”

That made sense. Why would our opponents change tactics when victory was all-but certain?

Tugging on her arm, I walked with her over to the rest of the team. Looking at Britney, I said, “I’m proud of you. You kept your head.”

She looked up at me, mouth working, shock evident.

Turning to Merielle and Nym, I went on. “You two were incredible. Nym,” I pointed to the siren corpse. “That was a mage. Unless I miss my guess, there will be magic items we’ll want to identify. If we’re lucky, she’ll have some sort of spell tome that you can use. It’s all yours.”

The catgirl’s eyes shone, although she did not run over to collect the potential reward yet.

“Merielle,” I gave the warrior elf a tight smile. “You damn near sacrificed yourself to protect your companions. On top of using your abilities wisely. Once again, you’ve shown just how capable you are.”

She returned my regard, her face still bloodied but with both eyes working. “It was all possible thanks to you.”

Waving the compliment away, I squeezed Zuri around the waist. “You know, maybe we need to change your class title to ‘Battle Chef’ after that. Without your concoctions, I doubt we would have won.”

The gorgon gave a smoky chuckle. “Thank you, our amazing leader. Together, the Society of the Defiant, managed the impossible. Now, how about we postpone further celebrations? We need to tend to one another, help the crew, and more importantly…”

Skullie, who’d risen to hover near my shoulder, piped up. “Get ingredients!”

Notice: You have won a victory over a [significant] enemy. Due to [Jordan’s] [overwhelming] contributions, victory experience has been reduced by a [majority] amount. Combat experience rewards are as follows:

Merielle, Britnayel, Nym, and Zuri: Each team member has earned [30] experience points. They require [57] experience points to reach level [5].

Jordan: Jordan has earned [100] experience points. He requires [522] experience points to reach level [13].