Questioning the ratling speaking for his light was driving A’Ferun’s emotions up mountains and down valleys. The creature’s limited words appeared to have some relation to its limited ability to understand more conceptual topics.
By the time Kinser talked A’Ferun into retiring for the night, the ratling had had to rest twice more and they knew no more than that N’kieran was aware of herself to a decent degree and that she wanted to see the world, or as much of it as she could while bound to the ship.
If there weren’t dragons in the skies, he would give her the lift cells that would turn the Light of Volmar into an airship and travel to the ends of the world with her. After the Idahl got to see his favorite daughter once more, A’Ferun would become the captain of his light’s ship and travel wherever she wanted with her. Even if she proved to have been turned into an insane monster, she was still his light.
The fear that her ordeal in being bound up with the dungeon core had driven her beyond sanity waxed and waned since Corbent had first brought up the possibility. A’Ferun now comforted himself by reminding himself it was merely a possibility, not an assurance. And, at least his light was proving consistent in hating slavery. He just had to wait while she figured out how to better communicate, and work with the scholars to figure out what he could do to help that along.
Tully barely waited until they left the dungeon to say, “There’s another floor. The core either hasn’t moved yet or we never found the real core room, but that archway is a portal anchor.”
Corbent spoke up. “That was and still is the core room. Are you sure it’s a portal anchor, though?” He turned thoughtful, not giving anyone a chance to respond. “Maybe the lady is preparing to make her second floor? It wasn’t active, as far as I could tell.”
Ep’hram nodded. “True, but did you notice how the ratling never moved from the tiles in the middle of the portal arch? Maybe there’s a puzzle to activate it?”
Della said, “That doesn’t explain the core still being on the first floor, so I’m inclined to think she’s building it still and needed the portal up for some reason. Maybe as a connection to the floor to build it? There have been reports that other dungeons have to have some direct connection to wherever they’re building up there next floors even before they move their cores.”
Though subterfuge was not A’Ferun’s specialty, he managed to maintain his composure at the speculation. N’kieran had offered to hide and shelter the slaves she got away from the slavers. He resolved not to let the scholars search for this speculative second floor until the slavers were gone from the ship.
“All well and good, scholars, but let us get some food. Please do not speculate in front of the passengers.” The last was aimed more toward limiting the information that Big Nose might pry out before his attempt at the dungeon run in the morning.
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While A’Ferun led the scholars through her dungeon, Prime worked out a sigil to scrap her ship clean up to her core’s mana reservoir. That was a task she wanted to spend as little attention on as possible, given where much of that cleaning was taking place. She couldn’t do much about the exterior of her hull, but she could keep the undersea access hatch neat. And barred.
That last bit she discovered during the twilight watch when something came knocking down there. It started off like a patting knock, at least, but quickly turned to battering, which escalated until the ship’s wards flared to life.
While it was escalating, Prime warned Aide, «Something hostile is coming at us from below.» She sent her spying rats to get a view of what lay beyond her hull. She was learning the characteristics of the mana around her ship, but it was still difficult for her to peer through with her mana senses. Her spies saw only a bit more of a disturbance to the waves than normal right up to the point the wards came to life.
As soon as those ward activated, the something in the water shrieked and the water around her rudder frothed up pink.
Prime and Aide watched the sailors scramble to respond. The bosun rang the alarms when he saw the wards flare and shouted out orders to ready charges and prepare the ship for battle. Half the sailors looked ready to lose their heads to panic and the other half had to drag them along to fulfill the bosun’s orders.
The off duty sailors and ships officers jolted out of their slumber and scrambled into their clothes, some even still pulling their belts tight as they ran for their duty stations. The officers all gathered weapons before leaving their bunks.
A’Ferun had been practicing with the hook spear when things got exciting. He came on deck in his armor, sword sheathed, spear in hand. Kinser was likewise equipped as he followed his liege on deck, though he was still buckling his leather chest piece. They pair paused to the side of the doorway for long enough to take in the chaos topside, during which time A’Ferun’s Lead Halo activated with a subtle nudge. If Prime hadn’t been paying attention, she might have missed it.
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A’Ferun strode forth with confidence to the railing and glanced over. The something battering at Prime’s hull had moved up close enough to the surface that bits of it broke out above the waves. A’Ferun’s voice was almost jocular as he announced, “Cepheloshark! We’ll have good eating once we haul it up!” Then he went and helped retrieve the called for charges. His assured demeanor calmed the panicky new sailors and heartened the older hands.
The charges the bosun called for were alchemical bombs that exploded when exposed to water. The were packed into stiff, leather-like casings that dissolved when immersed in water. The casings might grow a bit tacky in high humidity, but they rarely spilled open. Still, they were carefully stored in water-tight trunks with moisture leech enchantments, with maintenance of the charge trunks and the charges themselves being part of the AAO’s duties. The destructive potential of the bombs was based on the quantity of water they had to react with, so as long as the weather wasn’t heavy fog or rain, being opened in the air mostly just caused a loud bang over a long time.
When they were tossed into the water, however, they sank to a depth of around fifteen meters before they began exploding, the blasts shooting water up a good five meters into the air and making the ship’s anti-battering wards flare enough to render the inexperienced sailors — and Prime’s spies — blind for about half a minute from the contrast between the light and the dark of the night.
The creature attacking the boat managed to get the bulk of its body on the other side of the ship from where the charges were dropped, and so survived the concussive force. Prime didn’t know if it was smart or enraged, or a mix of the two. Regardless, it immediately began climbing up her hull. The anti-battering wards blocked anything moving fast enough to hurt a normal ship’s hull, and whatever the pirates had done with the original dungeon core made Prime’s hull as strong as any dungeon made walls, preventing the monster from tearing its way into her ship. That did not, however, prevent the monster from boarding her ship.
The sailors, Kinser, and A’Ferun met the tentacles slapping over the railings with cutlasses, harpoons, gaffs, and hooked spears. The lower leveled sailors’ attacks bounced off the sharktopus’s skin while A’Ferun and Kinser managed to cut off pieces of the creature and leave gapping slices where they didn’t cleave off flesh.
“Under tens, get back!” the bosun yelled. “Hollister! Take the boys and get the shock staffs from the armory!”
Prime got her first good look at the creature as it heaved itself over the railings onto the deck. She mentally blinked as she took it in. «Isn’t that just a giant cuttlefish?»
Aide pointed out, «No, no! The jaws are on the pointy end and the eyes are more in the middle of the beast. I think it can see both back and forward. Wait, does it—? It has two sets of jaws?» There was indeed a set of jaws in the middle of where all the tentacles started that looked like a crushing beak, a counter point to the tooth-filled maw snapping at the pointy end of its more fish-shaped part.
«Okay, cepheloshark it is,» Prime said.
She wanted to act, but with a Halo bearer on her ship that would be problematic. Her effective options were all outside of the Story World’s PLOT, and each Story World’s PLOT paid attention to its Halos. Acting too far beyond the scope the PLOT allowed would bring down the attention of the PLOT enforcers. On this world, those were the world wyrms. Even with the original Storyteller’s permission to buck the PLOT, the Agents of Cosmic Order still had to work with the systems in place.
The cepheloshark showed every sign of being at least a level 10 raid threat, as far as Adventurers ranked such hunts. That meant a team of no less than ten individuals at level 10 could probably take it down with good planning, resources, and teamwork. Party threats could be handled with groups around five, and solo threats were ones that someone at that level could handle, again with preparation and resources. Most Adventurers preferred hunting monsters no less than three levels below them.
Prime’s defenders constituted level 5 party threats, getting up to level 7 near the top end of her spawning capabilities at the moment. She wasn’t going to get out enough of a swarm of defenders to do much more than feed the cepheloshark due to the size of her core’s mana reservoir and the patterns of defenders available to her. With the restrictions on making changes to her ship and spawning in things where people currently were, things like, say, a barrel of water with one of those water bombs, Prime didn’t have a lot of PLOT acceptable offensive choices, so she and Aide watched.
When the cepheloshark landed on the deck, it knocked most of the lower leveled sailors away. Two fell overboard, and one unfortunate was squished under two of the thicker propulsion tentacles the cepheloshark used to hold itself upright. A’Ferun and Kinser led the older and higher leveled sailors in trying to keep the creature from gaining its bearings while the weaker sailors tried to get out of the fight. Despite their efforts, though, as the sailors repositioned, the creature and began targeting those retreating weakest sailors.
It snatched up two of them and drew them toward the toothy maw pointing skyward. A’Ferun danced in under one of the lifted tentacles and sliced deep into the tentacle holding one of the captured sailors. While the tentacle spasmed, crushing down on the sailor before flinging him away, the hooked spear A’Ferun was using got caught in the tentacle.
A’Ferun let go of his spear and drew his rapier. While the thicker than normal blade allowed A’Ferun to slice with his weapon, it was still more suited to poking holes in problems.
The Arcane Arts Officer arrived on deck around them and began blasting off mana bolts, targeting the cepheloshark’s eyes. The blinded creature let out a high pitched shriek and its movements grew more frantic.
Kinser found a vital point in the tentacle arm holding the other sailor and stabbed it with his daggers.
One of the sailors who had been late to dropping charges hurled the one still in his hand at the cepheloshark’s maw, but the charge fell short, nearly hitting A’Ferun in the back of his head. His Halo tugged him out of the way at the last moment. Spotting the charge, he picked it up with his off hand and charged up the beast to slam it into the creature’s mouth.
It reflexively swallowed, and A’Ferun bellowed, “Get back!” as he took his own advice, ducking and dodging around the wildly swinging tentacles.
The Arcane Arts Officer got a weaker version of the ship’s anti-battering ward up between the retreating sailors and the cepheloshark. Kinser and A’Ferun hung toward the back, making sure the mobile men got to safety first. They couldn’t do much for the immobile ones at this point, and barely made it to the safety of the barrier before a thunderous, meaty *BOOM* filled the air along with bits of cepheloshark.