The giant axolotl surged out of the water ahead of them, releasing a giant cloud of blinding mist and fog. Takehiko’s reaction was swift and efficient: He sent a powerful bolt of lightning downstream. He might not be able to see his opponent, but for a line of electricity like this, he didn’t need precision. The bolt managed to clip a feathered serpent as well, which spiraled into the water and had to be fetched by one of the bunyips. It was out of the fight, but not dead, so would have a chance to recover and be healed instead.
The axolotl roared in pain as flesh scorched and muscles cooked under the assault, but it had a lot of mass and thick skin, so a surprising amount of the damage was on the surface, leaving shallow but intense burns.
Undeterred by the attack, it charged at the boat as four more feathered serpents flew in, using their echolocation to find their targets. Mordecai chuckled at the round of curses sent his way as they fought to mitigate the constant barrage of blinding effects while fighting off their attackers. Shizoku and Takehiko became almost fully occupied in alternating between conjuring powerful gusts of wind and evoking bright light sources, for the serpents were taking full advantage of their globe of darkness spells and their more limited black cloud abilities.
That left Nainvil and the other pikeman to focus on fending off the axolotl while the archers fired arrows at the massive creature, and Brongrim did his best to cover them from the attacks of the feathered serpents. It didn’t help that most of the time they only had a vague idea of where the giant creature was.
This was where one of the advantages of hiring a boat came in, however: while the axolotl could rock and shake the vessel, it wasn’t allowed to break or overturn it. It could only swipe or bite at targets that stood above the rim, which the bunkin absolutely were not doing, and this made it less accurate than it would be against individual targets in or on the water.
And while the burn wounds were mostly near the surface of its body, that surface was its best defense and the scorch marks made excellent targets to penetrate its flesh more easily. None of the warriors hesitated every time the casters cleared enough visibility, striking for the most vulnerable spots. The multitude of wounds slowed it down as it began to bleed out, and the moment the feathered serpents were unable to keep up their vision-obscuring effects, Brongrim finished the axolotl off with a bullet through its eye.
Which left them to deal with the serpents now. Each of them had been bitten at least once during the flyby attacks, but with no cover left to hide them, the serpents simply charged in to bite and grapple. One of the four got cut down before it landed a hit, but that left Nainvil exposed enough for a different one to bite into his arm and wrap around tightly, squeezing to crush the breath out of the half-orc. Similar fates befell one of the archers and Shizoku, subjecting all three to a deeper injection of toxin while they were being constricted.
Takehiko conjured a ball of flame into his hand and lunged forward to grasp the serpent that was suffocating Shizoku behind its head, the intense flame burning through the creature’s flesh but also flash-burning off about a third of Shizoku’s hair. The thirteen-year-old collapsed to her knees and gasped, tears of pain in her eyes, but she forced herself to rally, hands trembling as she began pulling out pre-made vials of general-purpose antitoxins, downing one of them herself.
Brongrim’s method for freeing Nainvil was slower, but did not remove any of his companion’s hair at least: He dropped his gun into the well of the boat and grasped the serpent to hold a coil steady while he slowly slid his short blade between it and Nainvil. Here he took advantage of the half-orc’s metal armor, angling the sword and applying torque to cut into snake flesh while the back edge pushed against metal. It was bad for blade and armor both, but much worse for the serpent.
The other archer had dropped his crossbow and drawn a dagger to saw at the third serpent’s neck, cursing as he did so, while the pikeman had also drawn a dagger and was stabbing at the serpent’s face. It only took a few moments all told, but they were very intense moments that left the entire group tired and messy.
But there was no time to catch their breath, as they didn’t know how long they had until the next fight, and the bunkin had come out of hiding to begin straightening the riverboat and send it downstream once more. With so many wounds and an unknown amount of time, Takehiko decided to burn more magic and channeled a healing spell through his fairy. A small explosion of healing light and vitality washed over them while Shizoku continued distributing antitoxin vials.
The biggest weakness of casting a healing spell at that intensity was that it was generally indiscriminate, healing foes as well as allies, but it had no effect on the already dead bodies near them. It was also an extremely effective tactic when there were undead about, as it surged against the necrotic energy that animated such creatures. There were, of course, specialists who could manipulate the flow of healing energy to avoid foes, but such were almost exclusively priests who focused on healing.
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There were several minutes of scrambling after that as everyone checked each other over for any wounds not fully healed, watch for any signs of poisons that might take effect despite the antitoxin, collect any gear that had been dropped in the boat, and shove the creature bodies into expanded space bags for dealing with later. It was reasonably well-organized chaos, all things considered.
Mordecai had spotted something interesting in that fight, a slight flaw in one of the guards with a crossbow. He came up too much while fighting, given that they were in a boat and he was firing a weapon, and had a tendency to back up while reloading. Staying low helped with stability for both the boat and the person and certainly helped one's aim in a scenario like this. Backing up without being aware of what was behind you, well, that could be disastrous.
The next fight announced itself when a giant, furry, webbed paw grasped the side of the boat near the middle. The creature hauling itself into the boat was an otter-like monster over ten feet in length, and it lashed out with a vicious bite that cracked armor on Brongrim’s leg, eliciting a swear as the dwarf fired at point-blank range. The shot was enough to make the creature slacken its grip, but the thick fur and dense bone prevented the bullet from traveling very deep and mostly angered the monster.
This was a king otter, a particularly dangerous breed of the normally small and playful aquatic animals, and very territorial. Everyone attacked as it continued to clamber aboard, rocking the boat dangerously with its mass. Its fierce lunges and swift turns were enough to cause its bulk alone to be dangerous in such small confines, and everyone had to fight just to keep their footing.
Still, it was only one creature and in the center of several combatants, so despite the wounds and bruises it managed to inflict, the king otter did not last very long, and with its last breath let out a shrill, ear-piercing shriek that made everyone flinch in pain.
There was a long moment of silence as they started to recover, then a sudden surge of water and a blur of motion as a dark-furred form yanked the more vulnerable crossbowman off the boat and down into the water. True, king otters were very territorial, but only once they were part of a mated pair.
Mordecai’s intent had been to simply hold the man underwater long enough to claim a victory and have the bunyips recover him in time, but that plan slid a little sideways as the guard managed to grab one of Shizoku’s chews out of a pouch and shove it into his mouth. A moment later, a gummy bubble expanded out of his lips to cover his mouth and nose, filled with fresh air. This meant the man could focus on fighting, and that he did, drawing a dagger to stab at the king otter who had pulled him down into the water.
Unfortunately, even with the ability to breathe freely, a man wearing armor caught underwater with a giant otter was generally going to be outmatched. The next the party saw of the guardsman was his unconscious form being dragged ashore, where a bunkin in healer’s garb was waiting. The bunkin checked the man over and poured a healing potion down his throat before giving the other adventurers a thumbs up.
The group was disgruntled and not entirely satisfied, but they had made the right call in not trying to rescue the man pulled overboard. Mordecai had made the fifth fight conditional for this traversal: If they had dived in after the man, they would have faced a small pack of river drakes waiting in ambush. Also, the boat would have continued drifting downstream without them. By Mordecai’s estimation, that would have left Takehiko as the only one left to face off against Moriko and her minions-for-the-day.
Reduced to only six people, the party continued down the river toward the final confrontation of this journey. Their injuries were less grievous, but the loss of a member hurt their fighting potential much more. Takehiko rubbed the top of his cousin’s head with a faint smile. “Hey, at least you weren’t the first one taken out this time.”
She gave him a dirty look, then promptly ignored him and tended to everyone else’s wounds first. Then made sure to use the medicine that stung in patching up Takehiko’s scratches. Not that he really needed it with his fairy slowly healing him up, she just wanted to make his shallow wounds hurt a bit.
It wasn’t too much longer until they saw the tunnel begin to widen and the lake opened up in front of them. Now they all started their preparations for this fight, downing a slightly nasty-looking elixir that gave them all flexible, partial webbing on their hands before using one of the air-bubble chews. Then Takehiko began casting a spell, pouring enough energy into it to enhance its effects. The magic touched everyone in the party, but left no visible marks.
Mordecai wasn’t fooled, however, and a quick glance at Akahana showed she recognized the spell as well. The webbing and the air bubbles were back up, and this spell was their primary source of coping with this fight. They’d be able to treat the water as if it was solid ground unless they deliberately dove into it. Or were forced down.
Of course, ramping up the spell’s power to affect the entire party pushed it into the second strongest tier of spell that Takehiko could cast, so there had been a cost. And as the boat floated out onto the lake, they finally got a good look at all the ice floes dotting the surface. One of them, the largest, had a sharp-edged peak in the center, and poised gracefully on one foot was Moriko, her own shiny new staff resting across her shoulders as she serenely awaited her challengers, her bright red uniform contrasting sharply against the environment.