Casmur PoV
“Alright People, up on the tower is a large coastal battery, it may be strong enough to take this beast down! Come on chop chop!” Macy ordered, then all four tentacles were about to close in“Oh shit, EVERYONE SCATTER” yelled, as she dove for cover behind some barrels.
All four tentacles crashed themselves upon the courtyard, destroying whatever remains of the walls as well as flattening those unfortunate enough to be under the tentacle's strike zones.
“GET TO THAT BATTERY!” Macy yelled, as she got up and ran towards the building. Alongside two of those bluecoats from earlier trailing behind her.
“I’ll go with them.” Greorjy said, also disappearing inside the building.
The tentacles raised themselves high into the sky, ready for another strike. They came barrelling down, like an eagle diving for its prey. And Kalagina was directly right under its strike zone, completely unaware as she’s barking orders at some other civilians.
I didn’t have time to react as I swiftly dashed and shoved Kalagina out of the way, raised my sword and shield, positioning myself beneath the path of a descending tentacle. It slammed down with such force that it drove me into a crouch. However, my sword found its mark, lodging itself into the tentacle as it struck.
But the tentacle continued to increase its pressure. I don’t think I can hold on much longer, cracks are beginning to form in my shield, but the creature, as if sensing my shield’s weakness, intensified its pressure and forced me to go down to my knees.
I felt myself weakening under the crushing weight of the tentacle. Finally, after much struggle, my shield shattered into tiny pieces, leaving me to rely on the feeble strength of my hands against the kraken’s immense power.
But it was no use, as the tentacle had crushed me like a flattened slime creature, and darkness overtook me soon after…
It didn’t take long before I found myself back on board the Queen Anne’s revenge, as I awoke with a loud gasp, with me is my word sheathed in its scabbard and my shield looking brand new, as if it had never been shattered.
Scanning my immediate surroundings revealed the crew frantically scurrying around the deck performing all sorts of tasks. I could see there’s some damage on the ship, with a portion of the portside railings missing, or a number of dead sailors littering the deck.
“Look out!” A sailor yelled, acting swiftly I sidestepped to the right as a tentacle smashed itself onto the deck soon after.
Unsheathing my cutlass, I raised it as high as I could and swung downward with all my strength, using the momentum to my advantage. I slashed the tentacle.
The Kraken let out a mighty roar as I inflicted a moderately sized gash and the tentacle quickly retreated before the crew joined in on attacking it.
Checking on the boss bar and quickly despairing as we’d only chipped away a small portion of its health.
Another tentacle resurfaced, before the ship’s cannons roared and peppered the tentacle, which then proceeded to tear a hole onto the front bow of the ship, which simultaneously exposed the second deck.
“Casmur!” My attention was brought behind me as I spotted Hazmir running towards me carrying two small black circular objects with a fuse protruding from the top. Now it could be an explosive or something else entirely, as some Earthian’s love using them to dispense a cloud of smoke. Same design and same color.
“Now correct me if I’m wrong but is that an explosive?” I asked, and was relieved that Casmur is okay.
Hazmir grinned, which answered the question entirely. “I figured out how we can damage to this ‘Kraken’”
Puzzled, I asked, “And what might that be?”
“Well to put it simply, the skin on the tentacles is very tough, normal weapons such as firearms and many melee weapons aren’t strong enough to pierce through the skin, the exception to this seemed to be swords that are curved in some fashion, and or stabbing a tentacle with enough strength to lodge the weapon in.” Hazmir said, “Now I noticed, after careful observation of the health bar that a chunk, albeit a small one, of the Kraken’s health is reduced after being hit with explosives of any kind, compared to the small damage that small arms cause.”
As if to prove his point the second ship, the one flying the strange flag, fired a broadside point blank at two tentacles and witnessed a small chunk of the health bar dip lower.
“But that’d take too long!” I countered, “At this rate both ships will get destroyed with all hands!”
He held up a finger, “Which is I have a plan, a bold one at that. Getting the Kraken itself to surface!”
“And how are you gonna do that?” I asked, raising an eyebrow, and watching his expression deflate.
“Well umm, I was gonna light this and throw it in the ocean.” Hazmir said with an awkward smile.
“Oh brother…” I muttered under my breath, as I took an explosive from his hands. I hope Greorjy and the others are faring much better.
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Greorjy PoV:
Me, The Blonde officer girl whose name is Macy which I later learned, some soldiers and a couple of the townsfolk have barricaded ourselves inside the fort. We’re unable to get to the roof, as the tentacles would swiftly snatch anyone foolhardy enough to pop their heads out from the rooftop hatch, plus they just won’t let up and have continuously battered the fort.
The fighting outside had quieted down and at some point a tentacle tore a small hole on the northern walls, but so far the fort is holding.
“Goddamnit, if we can’t get on that battery we’re done for!” Macy declared.
“Well what the bloody hell can we do!? That slimy bastard would pick off anyone that dares open the hatch and move onto the roof!” A redcoat said, wearing that strange hat that Markus wore, which I’ve been told is a bicorne.
Macy displayed an irritated look, “Oh I’m so So-rry, but we wouldn’t BE in this stupid mess if you Brits, Spaniards, and Frenchies had just never arrived and started a fight!”
Soon After, both girls unsheathed their sabers and are now at each other’s throats.
I let out a heavy sigh, these have been going at it against each other ever since we became trapped in here as I sat against the wall.
Markus sat beside me, “So, how’s Najira?” I asked.
“She’s doing fine right now, albeit sleeping. Hazmir did a wonderful job, such a shame he died.” Markus said at first with happy tone, getting somber at the mention of Hazmir’s ‘death’
I chuckled a bit, “Hah as if, it’ll take more than mere explosives to kill Hazmir, though he’s very relaxed inside dungeons, even if he doesn’t show it!”
Markus grinned, “Right you are. Say Samarra and I got to talking and we decided to head out and act as bait.”
I gave him a look of alarm. “You can't be serious right? That thing squished Casmur with ease, and she’s the strongest out of any of us!”
“Well, somebody’s gotta keep that thing busy.” Markus smiled and got up, “I gotta go now, Samarra’s waiting for me at the front door.”
And watched as Markus ran up to Samarra and both promptly disappeared outside, before hearing crashing, spells and a sword clashing against flesh, the tentacles stopped pounding on the for which immediately caused both Macy and that redcoat girl to cease their eternal argument.
“Wait! Quick, now’s our chance, GET TO THE ROOF!” Macy ordered, which made everyone sprang into action.
I instantly got up and rushed up the ladder opening the hatch, and quickly scurried onto the roof, there I saw a large cannon mounted on top of a rotatable gun carriage. It looks exactly like a battery that I saw when I passed by Fort Kasel near Baroqueville a couple of months ago.
I practically drooled at the sight of this gun, which I snapped out of when I heard Macy coming up behind me, “That is a 36 Pounder gun, which will be used to take this thing down once and for all!” Macy said pointing to the gun.
Then more soldiers began arriving, “Alright people, aim and load the battery, move move!” Macy ordered, as she handed a variety of rods to soldiers, one ramrod, one worm, and another with some kind of lit rope attached to it.
I took a quick peek over the ramparts, and witnessed both Markus and Samarra, now joined by some soldiers and civilians, harassing the tentacles. while they’re doing minimal damage, to said tentacles the creature is clearly getting frustrated at the efforts of the two. Huh they seem to be hyper focused on Markus and Samarra.
What's interesting is there's only four tentacles out of the original six, this is good because that’s less we have to deal with, and bad because the Queen Anne’s Revenge will be in even more danger.
I take my firearm and aimed at a tentacle, taking slow and methodical breaths, I press the trig-
BOOM!
A loud explosion was heard in my vicinity, which had massively caught me off guard and caused me to inadvertently fire my gun upwards.
I turn behind me and I see smoke coming out of the cannon, which rotated as right as it could go. I then looked in the direction of where the cannon was pointing at and watched as the tentacle was blown off. I noticed the Kraken’s health bar decreased by a moderate amount.
“Hell Yeah! One down, three more to go!” Macy cheered, before her cheery mood was suddenly erased, “Aw crap, one’s heading right towards us! Quick reload!”
BOOM!
The cannon fired with a deafening roar, and the resulting explosion had torn the tentacle apart, right as it crashed ontop of the cannon, crushing it beneath its weight and anyone who wasn't so lucky with getting away.
“EVERYONE INSIDE NOW!!!” Macy yelled, corralling everyone back into the fort, then she looked, “YOU! GET INSIDE NOW!”
I shook my head as I got up, “No, I’m staying up here.” I said, with determination.
Macy shook her head in disbelief, “Your funeral buddy.” She said before disappearing into the hatch.
Now to reload…
———————————————————————————————————————————————
Casmur.
This was a stupid idea! I don’t even know how Hazmir managed to convince everybody onboard to go through with this!
I mean getting the Kraken to surface was a crazy idea all on its own, and using explosives to achieve such a feat? Which yes we did get it to surface, which is why in between the two ships is a large whirlpool with razor sharp teeth protruding out.
And also just WHY am I the one doing this? I’m currently on a rowboat with three barrels filled to the brim with explosives and I am sailing into said whirlpool. I am not alone, as I’m accompanied by Captain Muriel.
“YOU’RE DOING GOOD CASMUR!” I heard Hazmir yell in the distance, to which I responded by flipping him the bird. I swear I could hear laughter coming from him, but whatever.
Uhh, that whirlpool is getting closer!
“Alright now be our chance. As soon as the Kraken shows its sharp teeth, we throw the barrels at er’s mouth, ye got that?” Muriel said.
I nodded, here goes nothing, we get one chance and if the Queen Anne’s revenge gets destroyed we fail the floor.
The Kraken has fully surfaced itself, and not too long after it began to reveal twelve rows of razor sharp teeth. I felt a hard tap on my shoulder before Muriel and I began chucking the barrels at it.
All three landing themselves on a set of teeth firm planting themselves, Muriel threw lit up and threw a grenade at the it’s mouth, which detonated soon after causing a chain reaction of explosions as the barrels detonated soon after.
The creature let out a mighty roar before submerging itself back into the ocean’s embrace. I check the creature's health and see that we’ve dealt a huge blow to it, as the health bar has been greatly reduced, though nowhere near close to defeating it.
“Blast! We need more barrels!” Muriel said, as a set of four tentacles surfaced and circled around our rowboat.
“We’re done for!” I exclaimed, unsheathing my cutlass.
Muriel on the other hand put on what can only be described as a deranged smile, as she equipped two pistols from her bandolier, “Come at me ya scurvy bilge rat!” She declared firing both pistols, then unsheathing her cutlass and dived into the ocean.
This had caused the creature to divert a tentacle after her, leaving only three to deal with.
Okay Casmur don’t panic, you’ve fought more fearsome non-dungeon creatures and survived. Wait! Except I fought every single one of them on land, oh crap now I’m panicking!
All three tentacles were about to split the boat in half, only to be thwarted when that other ship fired a broadside driving all three tentacles away.
In response the creature entangled the already damaged ship before promptly splitting it in half. Leaving only the Queen Anne’s Revenge as the only ship in the vicinity. Uhh, well um, I’m gonna go tell Amelia that the duel is postponed… No, what am I thinking! I need to get back at that girl!
I did see that many of the ship's crew began evacuating aboard the rowboats, which were all rowing in my direction.
Muriel startled me when she surfaced, and climbed back on board. “Oi, I think I know how to defeat this slimy bastard.” She said.
“Oh please share it, I’m quivering in my boots.” I said, “When this is over, I’m not going anywhere anytime.”
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Muriel chuckled in response, “Once a landlubber always a landlubber.” I didn’t even have anything to say in retort, as I let her continue. “Anywho, the key to defeating the Kraken is by attacking its eyes.”
“It’s eyes?” I asked, completely perplexed.
“Aye, I noticed it covering its eyes when I dived after it.” Muriel responded, “Though I was unable to land a hit, I will go back down and try to get at it again, ye and the lassies will distract the tentacles!”
A-nd Muriel dived back again. “We heard the pirate captain, come on girls let's attack the tentacles!” Huh wait when did these redcoats get here?! Oh whatever, I won't be alone!
The Kraken realizing our plan, had relocated every one of its tentacles to come confront us. Standing up on the wobbling boat, clutching my cutlass tight, staring hard at a tentacle.
The tentacle with great speed, smashed my boat to pieces causing me to fall into the ocean. I panicked as now I’m falling towards the dark abyssal depths of the ocean, my armor only weighing me down…
Huh? Why am I not suffocating, nor am I drowning? I don’t remember placing any water breathing enchants on my armor? And water should absolutely be filling up the inside of my armor.
I sank deeper and deeper into the ocean, till I finally hit the ocean floor. It’s very dark, but what perplexes me more is I can still walk along the ocean floor, though it takes great effort for me to do so. Regardless I walked forward.
I don’t know how long I walked, only stopped once I hit something hard and metallic. Based on what little I could see, it’s rectangular in size and has some kind of circular handle with some numbers on its outer rim, located in the middle.
Suddenly this handle began rapidly spinning, before opening, and blinding me momentarily. But once I recovered, what lay in front of me was a sight to behold.
A big and spacious room with mountains of either gold coins and or gold bars, plus other riches beyond my wildest dreams. I reached out a hand to grab one before it was slapped away.
“Uh uh, no touchy.” A to my right said. I turned to my right only to find a Deep Sea Merkin sub species of Merkin! She’s got long red with shades black flowing hair, soft gray skin, and lastly a long silky smooth green fish tail. On her chest is a bra made out of some kind of hard material, if I were to hazard a guess I’d say it’s made out of iron, but who knows?
She had a very typical merkin appearance, except for the glowing red bioluminescent rod on her forehead that illuminated our surroundings with a bright white light. This allowed me to see her completely white eyes, her pale yet deep red hair, and her creamy skin which has slight shades of black—a result of living deep in the sea. Many are unaware of the existence of the Deep Sea Merkin, due to the complete rarity of their sightings, in fact not even their Merkin cousins know of their existence. In fact I never even knew they existed until I encountered one. It was twelve years ago, I was invited by a Dwarf friend of mine to board an experimental Dwarven made underwater boat known as the Abyssal Seeker. His goal was to explore as much of the ocean floor in the limited time we had. Long Story short a Deep Sea Merkin got curious and swam close, startling us when she suddenly appeared in front of us. In the end she was very apologetic for scaring us and gave us some type of fanged fish as an apology.
“Hello, and who are you?” I said.
She begins to swim in circles around me. “Oh how silly of me. My name is Mayna! And I arrived when mother Amelia created Davy Jones’s Locker! I mean the actual locker and not the euphemism for shipwrecks and drowning! For which I’m also the guardian of! I also don’t count towards the floor’s creature count due to the fact that I came with the locker!” She said in this cheery voice, before muttering quietly. “Mother Amelia doesn’t know I’m here and that I’m lonely…”
“Un excuse me Mayna, did you say something else?” I asked.
“Huh? Oh no I didn’t.” Mayna said with a smile.
O-kay that was odd, I swear I heard her mutter something, oh well. WAIT! How am I not drowning! “Forgive me, but I must be blunt, but how am I not drowning?”
“Oh you drowned.” Was the instantaneous reply Mayna gave.
“Hah, what do you mean I drowned? I’m still fine and breathing fine, and talking just normally.” That can’t be right, there’s no way I drowned, otherwise I’d have respawned on the ship!
A clipboard materialized in Mayna’s hands. “Hmm, no it says here that you died by drowning.” She said, showing me the clipboard.
No, no, no, I DIED! But how!
“Now you may be wondering why you haven’t respawned on the ship, as mother intended.” Mayna said, clasping her hands together. “Well to put it simply Davy Jones’s Locker pulled you down here.”
Um what…? Am I trapped down here forever!? “Wait, so am I trapped here?” I asked with a shred of dread in my voice.
Mayna shook her head, “No you're only trapped here until the Kraken is defeated, or returns to where it lives. And before you ask, no you can’t grab any of the treasure because you're dead, for that you need to make the journey down, ie diving.”
I, uh, damn. At least I get the honor of meeting my second Deep Sea Merkin, even if she’s a dungeon creature.
Mayna stopped swimming and hovered in front of me, “Oh it seems like you’re about to respawn on the ship, bye bye! Please tell Mother I said hi!” She said waving at me.
Before I could respond, I could feel myself fade into nothingness…
———————————————————————————————————————————————
At same time Hazmir’s PoV prior to the Kraken’s defeat:
Oh snap! That tentacle demolished Casmur’s boat.
“We need to get closer!” I said, “So that we can drop more explosives! The longer we delay, the higher it is for us to die!”
I saw the helmswoman nod before turning the wheel. Good, we're now heading closer to that whirlpool.
“Aye, more barrels packed with bombs.” A crewwoman said, rolling a barrel over to me.
I lift the barrel up, carrying it over to the now missing deck portside gun ports. Suddenly I heard very familiar footsteps coming from behind, turning to see who it was revealed to be none other than Samarra!
“Wait Samarra how’d you get here!?” I was baffled, last time I saw him was at the fort.
Samarra shrugs, “Asked Markus to kill me, figured it’d be the fastest way to get back on the ship.”
Erm, a bit of an unorthodox method of travel, but um okay. “O-kay, and what about Najira? How is she?”
“Najira unconscious but alive, Markus said that he’ll stay behind to watch over her, alongside Greorjy.” Samarra replied, “I have visual on the Kraken’s preparing fire bolt.”
Samarra’s hands began glowing a deep fiery red, and a set of two deep red rods began to form in his hands.
The Kraken surfaced once again, however it fully revealed its octopus shaped head, and is that Captain Muriel on top of its left eye? Furthermore she stabbed its left eye causing the creature to begin flailing, and a big chunk of its health bar had been reduced.
“Throw the barrels Now!” I ordered, as everyone carrying barrels began throwing it into the ocean, as Samarra began peppering the creature with fire bolts.
The barrels float closer, being aided by those redcoats on their rowboats. As all tentacles began flailing wildly in a vain attempt to shake Captain Muriel off of it.
As the barrels got close, a couple had been destroyed by the flailing tentacles, but fortunately a good number had broken through and are now touching the Kraken.
“Samarra shoot a firebolt at the barrels!” I said, to which Samarra nodded and hurled a firebolt igniting a barrel.
Seeing this Muriel jumped and dove into the water as the barrel exploded, causing a chain reaction of simultaneous explosions from the nearby barrels, creating a dense cloud of smoke.
I waited with bated breath as the smoke cloud slowly dissipated, and when the smoke finally disappeared, only to find the Kraken still alive, albeit barely hanging on.
The Kraken roared, raising all of its remaining tentacles, ready to strike. I dived behind a set of crates and braced for impact ready for the heavily damaged ship to be split in two.
However, we heard one last roar before hearing a big splash. I got up and rushed over to the edge, only to witness the Kraken’s lifeless body floating in the ocean with Captain Muriel standing triumphantly on its head.
I soon received a system notification.
[Mini Boss: The Kraken has been defeated.
Congratulations the Manarias Party has successfully beat floor 4
Party Awards: 5,347 XP, 1000 Gold Shillings, A heavy Dragoon Saber, a ‘Kraken’ pin, a model of the Queen Anne’s Revenge, a flintlock pistol with Muriel’s signature engraved, A spontoon, a Springfield Model 1812 Musket with Anchor and Macy’s signature engraved on the stock, 6 sets of cutlassess, lastly both a pistol and musket cartridge pouch.
Sidenote: Casmur keeps every potato she harvested.]
THAT WAS A MINI BOSS! Because that sure felt like an actual floor boss, man I’d hate to see what an actual floor boss is in this dungeon. Anyways, the rewards are good, maybe those ‘Shillings’ can be exchanged to proper Gold Coins, but hey we get to keep our cutlassess, plus many of these are quite strange, like what is a spontoon? Ah, I'll find out soon enough. Also what’s with this about Casmur and harvesting potatoes?!
Me and my compatriots were taken into a gray room, I scan around me, it looks like the party is back together. Najira’s sleeping quite comfortably on the floor, and hey! Even Casmur is here too.
But what’s interesting is in the middle of the room is a pedestal with a floating blue orb on top of it. This could only mean one thing. We’ve landed in the Core Room.
It didn’t take long before we were face to face, with the eccentric dungeon avatar Amelia.
“That was AWESOME! So, before I send you on your merry way, do you have any questions, comments, or concerns, or suggestions regarding floor 4?” Amelia, as a clipboard materialized in her hands.
I stepped forward, “I do have one comment, and it's about the town. I just want to say I really enjoyed the tavern, though a criticism of mine is that it’s a bit understaffed. I noticed that the lady was unable to keep up with the amount of adventurers that came.” After I said that, Amelia began writing on the clipboard, as I stepped back.
“Add more staff to the tavern, okay, anything else?” Amelia asked, “What about suggestions?”
Nobody said a word, until Casmur stepped forward and broke the silence. “It's not ours to say how a Dungeon Core should run its dungeon, though, since you insist, and we did agree to provide some feedback.” Amelia said, “I will say that the Kraken mini boss was enjoyable, a major criticism of mine is how those ships managed to somehow locate us at the ship.”
Amelia continued to jot things down in her clipboard.
Then Samarra stepped forward and spoke, “We shan’t keep you occupied Great Core, let us, humble adventurers exit the dungeon and allow a new set of adventurers to experience this floor.”
Amelia blushed, and scratched the back of her head, “Well gee, when you say it like that, guess I can’t keep you here far longer. Which reminds me, Casmur I saw you drown, why didn’t you respawn on the ship?”
Casmur coughed, and muttered, “The phantom pains are going to be horrendous.” She muttered, though just loud enough for me to hear, which I’m not gonna lie, dying to an explosion will be an interesting experience.
“To answer your question, I was dragged into the abyssal depth by Davy Jones’s Locker, where I met a kind Deep Sea Merkin named Mayna, to which she says hi by the way.” Casmur answered.
Amelia looked confused and tilted her head, “Wait Mayna? Deep Sea Merkin? I don’t remember summoning a creature like that.” She said, tapping something in the air. It looks as if she was about to continue speaking before Casmur cut her off.
“Oh before I forget, where shall the duel take place?” Casmur asked, looking expectantly at Amelia.
Amelia snapped her fingers, and suddenly we were in a spacious clearing surrounded by dense forests. In the center of the clearing was a small fighting arena, just big enough to accommodate about twenty-four spectators. We found ourselves seated in one of the stands as the arena began to fill with dungeon creatures. Wait—was that Macy and Muriel heading our way?
“Hohoho, I wouldn’t want to miss this.” Macy said, taking a seat next to me, as she held a bucket of chicken legs in her hands. “Want one?” I waved her off, but Greorjy didn’t mind as he took a piece from the bucket.
Muriel sat at a stand in front of us, took a drink from a mug she’s holding, then turned to face us, “Aye that lass Casmur was it? She’s a brave one at that!”
Oh wait, speaking of Casmur there she is without her plate armor, and just across from her is another woman dressed in pretty typical East Abercelian civilian attire, except she’s wearing a tophat. The two met in the middle with Amelia in between them.
“Alright you two, I want a good clean fight, no magic, you can only use what’s been provided, in this case pistols and rapier’s. Victory is decided upon the first blood or whoever taps out first. Understand?” Amelia stated in a firm tone. Followed by a chorus of ‘Yes Ma’ams’ from the two.
Amelia nodded, “Good, best out of three, each round will start with a pistol duel, then move into a rapier duel. I’ll have both of you stand back to back, and on my command walk ten paces, turn and shoot. Good luck ladies.” She said as she moved both Casmur and that other lady in the middle of the arena until they stood back to back, both standing as still as a gargoyle, both holding their pistols.
Amelia walked back a few steps, raised her left arm then shouted, “GO!”
Both Casmur and that top hat lady walked exactly ten steps, stopped, then both simultaneously turned and fired. Though both were still standing perfectly unharmed. But uhh it seems that the other lady’s top hat had been shot off.
Amelia placed her hands on her hips, “No hits, moving on to second phase, Draw your rapiers, your free arm behind your back.”
They both dropped their pistols and simultaneously unsheathed their rapiers, “And fight!” At Amelia’s command both took fighting stances and cautiously approached each other.
As the two got closer the Top Hat lady struck first as she lunged forward, only for Casmur to parry her attack, and launched her own counterattack but Top Hat Lady managed to dodge to the left, back away.
Casmur swiftly repositions herself to face her, before the other lady makes another attempt at a thrust before Casmur swiftly parries the thrust, as steel clashes against steel. Instead of launching with her own counterattack, Casmur instead dashed closer and attempted a risky overhead thrust.
The other girl seeing this attempted to parry, but Casmur was faster and she and pierced the other lady’s corset dress inflicting a small wound which if one looks closely is leaking a very small trickle of blood.
“Halt!” Amelia ordered, as she snapped her fingers, mending the Top Hat Lady’s wound, and both girls stopped and immediately stood at attention, “Round one goes to Casmur. Get back to the middle back to back, you will be handed freshly reloaded pistols shortly thereafter.”
“Man, that duel didn’t last long, if this occurred at the Knights Academy, this match would’ve easily lasted ten minutes. Then again both duelists would wear plate armor and would be equipped with a buckler.” Markus commented.
I heard movement to my left, turning towards my left I saw Macy holding two buckets of chicken legs as she sat down “Hey I came back with more chicken, and damn I missed the last half of that duel.” She said, grabbing a leg and biting off a big chunk.
“Alright, round two begins now!” My attention was moved back towards the arena, as I hear Greorjy’s enthusiastic cheering for Casmur.
Both girls repeated the same exact motions as they did in the first round, except the moment both fired, Casmur dropped to the ground, clutching her leg.
Amelia snapped her fingers and Casmur’s leg was healed. “Round two goes to Isabella.” Oh so that’s what her name was, man I feel silly for referring to her as the ‘Top Hat Lady’ good to know.
She got up, and walked to the middle of the arena, until she was back to back with Isabella. “Alright this is it, the final round, this’ll decide whether Casmur sulks for an entire month or she’ll have an inflated ego for the same duration.” I joked, causing a few chuckles to erupt from among my party members.
“Alright final round ladies, give it your best!” Amelia said, “And go!”
Both repeated the same motions as the previous rounds, with both still standing and drawing their rapiers at Amelia’s command. The main difference here is Casmur went on the offensive, taking three steps then lunging with a forward thrust, but it appears Isabella also had the same idea, taking two steps then lunging forward with her own thrust.
This achieved nothing as both blades met halfway bending backwards a bit before quickly straightening out. Then Isabella took one step back, then launched a series of quick thrusts with each one being swiftly parried by Casmur.
This series of attack and counterattack went on for exactly twelve more seconds, before both girls backed away. I could tell that they’re both getting tired as their movements become more and more sluggish. As both girls circled each other, eying their opponent wearily.
Then suddenly Casmur ducked low as Isaballa thrusted forward, with Casmur countering by thrusting upward, catching Isabella briefly off guard, but she soon recovered and switched her mid thrust to be downward.
Casmur reacted by rolling to the right, and jumping back up on her feet, and parried another strike, in quick succession. She then countered with an overhead strike, but Isabella managed to parry it.
Isabella backpedaled three steps back, before both girls continued to circle each other.
“Man they’re really going at it.” I comment, as I took a bite from a chicken leg.
“Wha? Where am I?” Najira’s groggy voice asked.
“Casmur’s dueling one of Amelia’s dungeon creatures!” Greorjy replied, then took a bite from a piece of chicken he now held.
“Huh…? Oh ok, I still don’t know what’s going on.” Najira said, still sounding a bit tired, and went right to sleep.
Anyways, the fight continued, when Isabella ran then jumped high into the air, making an attempt to stab Casmur in the back. While Casmur swiftly side stepped to the left, turning around to parry Isabella’s attack just in time.
This type of back and forth continued on for another minute of just straight up acrobatic performances conducted by both, with the clashing of steel accompanying the acrobatics.
However it finally ended when Casmur performed a leg sweep causing Isabella to fall on her back, at which she poked at Isabella’s shoulders causing a small trickle of blood.
“Halt! We have a winner, which goes to Casmur!” Amelia declared, “Unfortunately there is no prize except defending your honor!” Then Amelia snapped her fingers which healed Isabella’s wound.
Casmur approached the downed Isabella, extending her hand, to which Isabella grabbed hold of it and got right back up.
My compatriots and I were then teleported back to the core room alongside Casmur and Amelia.
“Achem, well there you go, I hope the duel was entertaining. I promise the arena will be better, trust.”
Markus chuckled, “The duel was great, though it was too short for my liking.”
“If there isn’t anything else I’ll let you six go now!” Amelia said, as she waved at us. I can feel myself becoming more transparent.
Then a few moments later we were teleported outside the dungeon entrance, and almost immediately I collapsed on the floor as heavy tingly feelings combined with burning sensations and feelings of being impaled by tons of different objects of varying sizes hit me like a horse running full speed and crashed into me.