The sea trolls’ caution swiftly became confusion at the sight of a single figure facing off against them. Sure, Maximilian was an intimidating sight, but Lanek was pretty sure that he didn’t strike fear into the hearts of his enemies. Let’s change that, shall we?
Lanek brought one of his orbiting spheres into his field of view, targeting the small sphere directly at the sea troll priest. [Mass Driver] triggered and the orb flew faster than his eye could follow, but not fast enough. The priest merely cocked his head and the projectile was deflected to the side, flying far out to sea. Lanek proceeded to fire a number of projectiles, his mana cost reduction and mana regeneration enchantments already paying off. However, the priest continued to shrug them off. The one time Lanek thought that one of his shots would break through, the hulking monster next to the priest blocked the shot with one of his gauntlets.
The captain, or whatever passed for that rank among the trolls, started to laugh as he simply stood in front of the projectiles, letting his leather armor absorb the blows. The only time he showed any concern for the projectiles was when one was flying toward his face. The creature shouted something that Lanek couldn’t make out, but it was probably for the best as the ranks of sea trolls began to laugh. Urged on by their laughter, the captain began leisurely walking toward Lanek, merely grunting as orbs struck him.
Fucking finally. Lanek thought as the captain passed through a large concentration of his raiders. The dranrid fired off another projectile, straight at the captain’s chest. Predictably, the creature made no attempt to dodge or block the strike, much to his detriment as the inscribed symbol activated upon impact. A shockwave thundered out from the orb, flinging trolls into the air like rag dolls. The captain flew much further, taking the brunt of it, but things quickly became worse as another orb struck him, followed by another. And another. Each shockwave building upon the last until he landed in the ocean, well away from land.
To the captain’s credit, he recovered from the shock quickly and started to swim toward the shore. Suddenly, he began screaming and flailing at the water. The priest attempted to do something for their captain, but it appeared that the captain was simply too far away or whatever was attacking him was too strong for the priest to handle. Within seconds, the captain was gone, leaving behind a red stain upon the water.
Lanek smiled. It didn’t take long for them to get complacent, did it? Cocky bastard shouldn’t have taken me lightly after I fired off the plain orbs.
The priest was raging in his direction, speaking all manner of foul insults based on his demeanor. When Lanek focused an orb upon the priest, the creature sneered at him as it created a shimmering shield in front of him. Arching an eyebrow at the monster, Lanek raised his aim a bit and fired the orb. The priest laughed at Lanek’s poor aim. A moment later the troll was slammed into the ground as the orb’s shockwave enchantment triggered over its head.
Lanek sighed in relief. He wasn’t sure that he would be able to cause the projectiles to trigger in mid-air, but it turned out that he had a connection with all of his inscribed items since he was the only one that could use them. By default, the projectiles would trigger on impact, but the air burst effect was going to be insanely useful, especially considering how quickly it had put the troll down. The dazed troll attempted to stand, but it only made it halfway to its feet before another projectile streaked toward it, the wooden sphere elongating into a spear as it flew. A second later, the troll priest’s head exploded as the crudely made spear shattered on impact with its skull.
Oh shit… I didn’t expect that, I thought it would just pierce straight through. I guess the [Conjure Spear] really doesn’t have much durability. Noted.
The remaining trolls were attempting to rally, but were severely hampered by the loss of their command structure. It also didn’t help that Lanek continued to bombard them with shockwaves until he felt his companions get close enough to handle the rest. The trolls screamed and finally broke as Liv and Yuri crashed into the confused creatures, Sanguineus and Kazuma swiftly following in her wake to slaughter those trolls that still hadn’t managed to stand up.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
It was a bloodbath. However, it seemed to be just what his companions needed as they seemed to revel in the rapid acquisition of experience and levels. Once the last of the trolls had been dispatched, Lanek joined his companions to collect the reward stones and other loot. They had decided to pool the stones together and split them evenly since every one of them could benefit from using the stones in the shop.
Lanek had four small pouches within his pack that were each dedicated to Kazuma, Sanguineus, Maximilian, and Pharaoh’s reward stones. While Pharaoh wasn’t a contracted companion, he also didn’t have pockets so Lanek was holding onto the tressym’s share.
Liv walked up to Lanek with a broad smile on her face. “That was amazing! Feeding the raider captain to the ocean was hilarious, by the way.”
“I wasn’t sure it was going to work, I figured this would at least keep him out of the fight for a while. Is there always something dangerous that close to shore? He wasn’t flung that far out into the water.”
“Not always, but often enough that it is still a good idea to limit your time in the water.”
“Any idea what got him?” Lanek asked curiously.
“No clue. There are a mind boggling variety of nasty things in the ocean. I doubt anyone has recorded more than a fraction of them.” Liv explained.
Pharaoh came flying over and interrupted their conversation. “Uh, you two need to look in the ship. Now.”
Before either Lanek or Liv could respond, the tressym was already flying back toward the damaged ship. Lanek shrugged at Liv and followed the winged cat into the darkness of the hold, freezing as Pharaoh used his magic to illuminate the interior.
“What the hell, Lanek? Why did you stop?” Liv swore as she walked into Lanek’s back. She gasped as she peered over Lanek’s shoulder.
Chained to the walls of the hold or held within cells and cages were dozens of prisoners. Lanek could see humans, orcs, and several of what he assumed were dwarves. Some were more malnourished and fearful while others were in much better shape and still looked ready for a fight. It looks like they were all captured in different raids for there to be this much of a difference in their condition.
Pharaoh seemed almost distraught as he worked at the lock to one of the cells. Lanek, worried about what he would find that had affected the tressym so much, approached and peered into the cell. Huddled into a corner of the cell, as far away from the light as they could get, were dwarf, human, and orc children.
“Pharaoh, back off after you unlock the door. They are terrified.” Lanek said, before approaching one of the dwarves that was straining at his chains. “Are any of the children yours?”
The dwarf stared at him for a moment, before nodding. “Aye.” He croaked, clearly suffering from dehydration.
Lanek handed the dwarf his water flask. “My name’s Lanek. My friends and I have killed the trolls, you are safe. Any idea where the key might be?”
“You have my thanks, the fuckers haven’t given us food or water in a while now. The priest should have the key.” The dwarf handed Lanek the water flask before continuing. “The name’s Duristor, by the way.”
Liv, having overhead their conversation, returned with the key. “Here you go. It was on the priest’s corpse.”
Lanek wasted no time in releasing Duristor and handing him the key. “My friends and I will wait outside. It’s probably better if a familiar face let’s everyone loose and approaches the kids.”
“You’re probably right there. Some of these poor sods have been in here long enough that they jump at everything. Thank you for your consideration.” Duristor said and began making his way through the prisoners.
Meanwhile, Lanek, Liv, and Pharaoh reconvened outside of the ship. Yuri, Maximilian, Kazuma, and Sanguineus were dispatched to explore their surroundings for any danger, such as another patrol of trolls, and to hunt for everyone. They would need a lot of food for the malnourished prisoners and Liv had pointed out that the furballs would likely terrify the poor prisoners.
While they waited for Duristor to release the prisoners, Lanek and Liv had found a large pot and multiple water skins among the corpses of the trolls and were now sitting at the edge of the water using Lanek’s purification flask to convert the sea water into potable water in order to get enough water for the prisoners. They had just finished filling the pots and skins when Duristor emerged from the ship, blinking against the sunlight and followed by nearly sixty people.
Shit, there are a lot more of them than I thought…