Iris saw of a flash of light somewhere in the darkness at the bottom of the hydra's chamber. Unsure of what to expect, she waited with bated breath while her mind still raced for solutions. Her thoughts paused abruptly when a new form came into view in the darkness beyond the glass -- a mermaid with blue scaly skin clad in gleaming emerald armor and wielding a tall trident. Her tail flicked slowly as she hovered in the water, staring at Iris through the glass.
Iris was preparing to blip to the deck above when she noticed the mermaid's eyes flick to the podium in front of her, and then the lever beside it. The likely purpose of the lever donned on Iris, as did the importance of defending it. The mermaid swam away, and another took her place, rapidly approaching the glass with a cannonball in hand.
A lot of details clicked into place for Iris all at once. The mermaid released the cannonball and twisted away. It bounced off the glass with a thunk, and a jet of water followed behind it. The cannonball exploded, the glass fractured -- and then collapsed.
Water filled the room, the force of it ripping away the podium and slamming into Iris. The glow stones went dark. The air was forced from her lungs as she impacted the back wall. She only managed to gasp a single breath before the water enveloped her head.
She sensed a trident racing towards her neck, and blipped forward. She appeared behind a mermaid as it swam into the implosion left behind from her blip. The tips of the trident sunk deep into wall as the shockwave dazed the mermaid, causing it to swim head first into the wall and further stun itself.
Tentacles erupted from the bottomless bag and wrapped around the mermaid, constricting until bones snapped. Another trident came for her head, this time with no mermaid attached. She blipped out of its path and blipped the trident into her hand. A bigger implosion erupted -- encompassing not only the space where she had been, but the space where Abby's tentacles had been as well.
She angled the trident towards the next motion she sensed -- the mermaid who had tossed it was now racing towards her. Iris stabbed the trident forward but the mermaid rolled to the side and dodged, grabbing hold of the trident and pulling as she whipped her tail around to slap Iris in the head.
A tentacle blocked the tail and promptly wrapped around it, and Iris pulled back on the trident. The mermaid snarled and tried jerking the trident from Iris's hands, but Iris held tight. A smiled crossed Iris's face as she wrestled over the weapon -- she was stronger than the mermaid.
Iris twisted and jerked the trident away from the mermaid, then kicked off the wall and shoved the weapon forward. The mermaid twisted to dodge, but Abby pulled it into the strike. The sharp tips of the trident glanced off the mermaid's chest plate, but slid down and impaled it at the waist. Iris shoved the trident deeper, then blipped behind the mermaid.
The wound and ensuing implosion stunned the mermaid, and Iris followed up with a kick to the back of its head. The mermaid was flung forward, landing head first against the wall with a sickening crack that was dulled by the water.
Two more mermaids appeared within the range of her senses. Abby intercepted one, but it was prepared for the tentacles and deftly twisted and rolled to slip free of Abby’s grasps before they could constrict. The other mermaid swam straight for iris and swiped claws at her throat. Iris blipped, once again the implosions left behind stunned her adversaries -- but another was charging at her from beyond the shattered window.
She sensed her enchanted walking stick floating nearby when she reappeared, and blipped it into her hands. She swung the stick as hard she could against the resistance of the water, but the mermaid angled just below the swing and colliding with Iris at the waist -- wrapped its arms around her and driving her back against a wall.
Abby's tentacles were busy intercepting the other two mermaids as they recovered from their daze. Iris was feeling weak, and her lungs were burning for air. She twisted the stick around in her hands and brought the tip down on the mermaid's spine, releasing a powerful blast of kinetic energy from the staff that shattered vertebrae. The mermaid's grip relaxed, and Iris blipped up to the deck above, landing with a splash on her hands and knees as she gasped for air.
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She lay there for a while, relishing briefly in the calm with quick, heaving breaths, before turning her mind towards the situation. She knew she should leave. The smart thing to do would be to go find someone stronger to solve this problem, she'd learned this by now -- but she was pretty sure the mermaids were going to release the hydra, and that only a few locks on the lever were in their way. Iris had witnessed the fresh carnage of a battle against a hydra, and vividly recalled the beach and the Underbelly reeking of death for weeks. This time the crew would be trapped on the Gaping Maw, in a dark cove, with a pissed off and hungry hydra -- it would be a nightmare. She'd have to act now, there wasn't time to ruminate on risks.
"We gotta do something," she said between breaths.
The tentacles loomed all around her, and a few suddenly grabbed hold of the iron bars that gated the armory room. Iris glanced over at the gate. She blipped into the armory and Abby's tentacles promptly whipped around in a flurry as they each collected weapons. Iris looked around at the tentacles, now wielding swords and daggers. Her hat had been knocked off in the fight, and her wet hair clung to her face, her dripping robes weighed her down, and her breaths were still heavy. Still -- she smiled.
"Let's see what we can do about this," she said, her voice quivering nervously.
Loud, affirmative tones emanated from the bottomless bag.
A few seconds later, Iris took a deep breath and blipped back to the room below.
A mermaid was attempting to pull the lever -- it had been snapped in half by the initial rush of water, but multiple fail safe locking mechanisms kept it in place. As the mermaid jammed a trident against a padlock at the base of the lever, Iris delivered a powerful kick to the back of its head.
The mermaid was shoved forward by the strike, but rolled into the motion and flicked its tail back to thump into Iris's chest. This pushed Iris back as well, but she promptly twisted and blipped. Using the moment the mermaid had given her, she appeared in front to and to the side of it, swinging her stick towards the mermaid's chest. The strike landed against lazuli armor that cracked under the strike but held strong. Even with the armor absorbing the blast, the force was enough to throw the mermaid into an involuntary roll. Tentacles quickly converged on the tumbling mermaid and drove blades through every exposed portion of its flesh.
Something struck Iris from behind. She instinctively glanced down, but could see nothing in the darkness. Instead she sensed it -- the three prongs of a trident were extending out of her abdomen. Her mind twisted and contorted, a sickening sensation of wrongness overtaking her. The prongs withdrew, and raced forward again aimed at her heart.
It's okay, she told herself in her mind, we have options.
She blipped and swung her stick, but this time without expending the energy stored within. Instead she swung it through the gap between two prongs of the trident, letting the staff absorb the combined energy of her swing and the mermaid's forceful stab. The trident and stick both came to an amicable stop, and Iris blipped again.
As she reappeared, tentacles found the mermaid who had stabbed her. Blades sliced at scales and punctured flesh. An unarmed tentacle grabbed the mermaid's tail and whipped the mermaid around to slam against the thick metal bars of the window cage, bouncing it off one after another before finally slamming it into the floor and pinning it down with blades.
Iris shoved the walking stick down into the crevice at the base of the broken lever. Her head was still spinning, her body wanted to vomit and her fingers were going numb. She pumped mana into the staff and blasted force from the tip, shattering the mechanism beneath the lever and exploding the floor around it into splinters.
Mermaids were converging on her. She looked up and blipped. Her lungs sucked in a breath of their own accord, but something was wrong. Her heart was racing. The breaths weren't working. Pain finally found its way to her mind, and a sharp burning sensation spread across her chest with every attempted breath. With what little strength remained, she clutched the enchanted locket hanging from her neck.
She blipped again, appearing on the mechanical deck, splashing blood and water at her feet. Another blip brought her to the storage deck, another to the crew quarters, and with the last of her mana she appeared on the gun deck and collapsed.
Her vision was fading, but she could hear the fighting. Her head limply rolled to the side, where she could barely see a cluster of pirates desperately holding back a tide of mermaids fighting their way down the stairs.
"Iris!" Titus yelled, appearing in her vision a second later as he dropped to his knees beside her, “what happened?”
Iris, still clutching her locket, wheezed out her words, "can you save me?"
Titus's face was filled with panic as he inspected her wounds. The seconds felt like an eternity as she watched his face contort through several emotions.
"Can-- you--" she croaked.
"Yes!" he shouted suddenly, "it's going to hurt."
Iris nodded, and let go of the locket. Her hand dropped limply to the floor, and her eyes drifted shut.