Clad in stone armor formed from rocks Iris had provided from the bottomless bag and wielding a long stone spear made from the same, Autumn stood like a statue amongst the pirates who formed a wall in front of the port side stairwell. Across the main deck, guns fired, magic flared and swords clashed with claws as the mermaids swarmed over the railings on all sides.
Though their tails had split into legs, their skin remained covered in scales in hues of blue and green. Their shape was human, but they had the faces of snarling, hissing monstrosities. Most wore emerald or lazuli armor that sparkled in the sunlight, but the most heavily armored amongst them wore plates made from the bumpy, scaly hide of some unknown creature.
An unlucky pirate was shot through the leg by a spear of water launched from the palm of a mermaid, dropping him to a knee. The mermaid followed up by leaping atop him with her hands and feet, collapsing him back against the mast as she swiped a set of claws across his throat and leapt away.
"They're not like you, they can all do that" Adan said beside her, standing tall and gleaming like a statue of his own.
A second later, a blast of white, crackling magic from Titus at the starboard side stairwell landed squarely in the injured pirate's chest and quickly healed his wounds. A scream escaped his throat after the rips in his flesh closed up, even as he climbed to his feet and picked up his sword to charge at the nearest enemy.
"Not like me?" Autumn asked, adjusting her grip and stance in anticipation of battle.
Every few seconds another pirate fell, and another blast of magic from Titus picked them up. The mermaids began to turn their attention towards him.
"Any of you. They have no threads, only innate magic," Adan said, "what you see one do, they can all do."
Autumn watched the metal-skinned man curiously, his eyes were intently focused on the battle even as he spoke, flicking rapidly to different targets across the deck.
"They often crouch to dodge," he said, "get ready."
Autumn returned her gaze forward, seeing only small shifts in the battle before them. Beside her, Adan clinched his fists and ever-so-slightly lowered his stance. To their right, several mermaids abruptly disengaged their conflicts and swarmed towards the starboard stairwell. The front row of pirates fired their guns before slipping between the ranks of the second row, which stepped forward with weapons drawn to clash with the mermaids.
Several pirates in front of Autumn and Adan shifted towards the starboard side to join the fight and flank the swarm. This quickly turned the tide of the clash at the starboard stairwell, but left the port stairwell less defended. Autumn stepped up into the front line to fill a gap, while Adan stood tall behind her.
"They'll attack from the left and above," Adan said quickly, "I'll take above."
"How do you--" Autumn abandoned her question when a scaly torso emerged over the railing to her left.
She twisted and drove her spear past the pirate to her immediate left, between the posts of the railing and into the chest of the climbing mermaid. The barbed tip hooked into the mermaid's back as she withdrew the spear, pulling the mermaid forward and skewering it onto the spikes nailed to the railing. The pirate to her left swiped a sword and cleanly decapitated the mermaid, but more were already appearing.
Behind her, Adan leapt up and backwards, arcing sharply over a creeping mermaid as it stealthily crawled to the edge of the quarterdeck above. He landed with a foot on the mermaid's back and grabbed either side of its head as it instinctively glanced up at the movement. With a swift, almost mechanical twist of his hands and torque of his body, he snapped the mermaid's neck.
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Without pause, he spun and launched a swinging kick at a mermaid who approached from behind with short trident aimed towards him. His leg was longer, and his heel struck the mermaid in the jaw. She was spun to the side and staggered, and in a flash Adan followed up with rapid, surgical punches to the gaps in her armor that flowed effortlessly into a complex maneuver that bound and twisted her arm, which he promptly snapped. The mermaid was screaming in pain and more were surrounding him. Without an expression or reaction Adan disengaged and kicked her over the quarterdeck railing for someone below to finish off as he reoriented to face his new attackers.
Just below, Autumn was in a nasty brawl. Claws left deep grooves in her armor and tridents sparked when they glanced off of it. Her spear was too long for such close range, so she dropped reformed it into fist and elbow spikes attached to her armor. She dodged a swipe towards her head with a lean and drove a spike in and out of the gap below an emerald chest plate. A falling, screaming mermaid landed atop the one she had just impaled and was promptly decapitated by a pirate’s twirling sword. Claws grabbed her other arm, and she jerked away briefly before shoving back against it to drive the elbow spike into a throat. A leaping mermaid aimed a trident at her neck, but was shot from the air by an unseen gun and landed atop one of its allies in a heap.
The starboard stairwell fared well with the backup from the port stairwell and the unending healing of Titus. while injured mermaids often leapt overboard to return to the water, the would-be slain pirates stood up again and again and rejoined the fight. The tide of battle across the deck soon shifted to a full assault against the stairwells, particularly the starboard side towards the well-guarded healer.
This sandwiched the attackers between the fortified stairwells and the pirates racing after them from the stern -- but it was only a moment before more mermaid reinforcements climbed onto the front of the ship and joined the fight, creating a multi-fronted battle.
All the while cannons fired. The port side cannons held back the endless of stream of reinforcements entering the cove from the lake, while the starboard cannons suppressed the unseen source of the water jet artillery from the depths of the cove. Cannons blasted and rolled, they were reloaded with rapid, practiced movements and promptly rolled back into place to fire again.
The sky was growing dark, and the forest around them became a still, eerie wall around the chaotic waters of the cove. The pirates of the gun deck soon saw only darkness beyond the hull, but they continued the perpetual cycle of firing, reloading and firing again.
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The Shark Titan held back the clamping jaws of the giant anglerfish with bulging arms and a snarl. He pulled his feet close to his chest and out of the creature's mouth, placed them onto teeth, and kicked off. The force launched him away and shattered the teeth. He quickly twisted and bolted away, his speed being as valuable in this fight as his strength.
He dodged the constant harassment of warfish and searched the waters for the mermaid queen -- he knew that if he couldn't see her, she was working on something. Behind him, the pursuing wizard turned anglerfish opened his gaping jaws and began to suck in water, quickly forming a massive underwater whirlpool that slowed the captain's escape to stop, and soon began to pull him backwards.
The Shark Titan twisted around, preparing for another clash with the creature's teeth, when the pressure of the water increased -- but not from above. He glanced below and his eyes went wide. Something large was rising from the depths. Facing one problem at a time, he returned his attention to the anglerfish, flipped around and swam into the force of the whirlpool towards the waiting jaws.
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Iris found a short stairwell that lead to a door just below the floor of the sixth deck. It was chained, bolted, and barred shut. A crude carving of a multi-headed hydra was cut into the wood, surrounded by several small skulls. Despite the call of adventure begging her to blip past the door, she hesitated at the sight of the skulls. She could sense there was air on the other side, rather than water, and all four walls of the room were within range of her awareness ability, so she knew the room to be too small to contain a hydra -- but warnings existed for a reason, no matter how much she wanted to pretend otherwise.
Another not-quite-trumpet sound reverberated through the hull, followed by dull but powerful thuds and another set of overlapping roars from the hydra. It sounded weak and desperate, and Iris swore she detected a hint of longing or begging in the tone. Whatever was happening, it was making the hydra restless, and was surely part of the mermaid's plan.
She could go find help -- but based on the constant, distant booms of cannon fire, those above deck were busy enough. She could back away, pretend she never came down here and never heard the sounds -- but no, she was a member of this crew, and she had her own weight to pull in the struggles of the Gaping Maw.
With a deep breath and an excited heart, she blipped past the door.