The thrusters at the stern still vomited flames and trailed thick black smoke as the Gaping Maw rocketed through the sky. With no crew on deck to control the sails, the runaway ship was locked into a straight-ahead course as a dozen balrogs descended upon it.
Meredith danced around the main deck on the tips of her feet, light jumps carried her several feet while smoothly integrated leans and stoops dodged the reckless attacks of the balrog that pursued her. The twin swords hung from her hands by her side as her arms swayed for balance — the blades would serve no use blocking attacks, their only purpose so far had been swipe at the beast whenever possible, leaving only superficial wounds on extremities.
The sunlight glinted off the dark red eyes within the balrog’s primate-like head, half hidden beneath a helmet carved from the bleached white skull of a drake, which was flanked on either side by the balrog’s black, hook-shaped horns. A perpetual snarl exposed large square teeth and four elongated fangs as it stomped across the deck with cloven hoofs and swung a club that was little more than some giant creature’s femur half-wrapped in leather.
Dust shot through the cracks between planks in the deck as a cannon erupted within the ship below. It was the largest of many blasts to be heard from the lower deck, and frequent flashes of magic could be seen through the cracks or flying out from the cannon ports.
“The fools are gonna blow up the ship!” Luo called out as kicked off a mast to dodge his own balrog.
Meredith crouched low to avoid a horizontal swing of the femur and dashed between the balrog’s legs, leaving glancing cuts on the inside of either leg as she emerged behind it, “maybe we let loose ourselves?” she shouted.
On the quarter deck, the Shark Titan wrestled with the largest of the balrogs — easily two feet taller than even the captain himself. His bone helmet was made from the skull of an even larger balrog, complete with an extra set of horns to join his own. The balrog had begun the fight with a two-handed axe, but had abandoned it the moment the captain had closed the distance between them and made it useless. The two titans now fought hand-to-hand, slamming punches cracked the air like bombs as they struck sharkskin and hair and frequent clashes led to stalemates of strength as either behemoth struggled for dominance.
In one such clash, the balrog opened his mouth wide and a sphere of flame swirled within its jaws — erupting out as a beam of fire that the captain barely ducked below. With a forward lunge, the Shark Titan clamped his jaws down on the balrog’s thigh and shredding through flesh. His movement didn’t pause, and he ripped his jaws away as he passed beneath the balrog’s swinging arm and swallowed the flesh in a gulp.
His foe didn’t pause at the wound, and instead spun around with a bone-armored elbow that cracked into the captain’s chest and knocked him to the ground. The balrog stepped up to loom over the captain, releasing a deep and foreboding chuckle as blood still poured from his thigh.
The captain answered with a dark cackle of his own as his body absorbed power from the flesh. Stealing powers was an ability he rarely had an opportunity to use — but always cherished.
The snarl returned to the balrog’s face as he lifted a hoof to stomp down on the captain, but it was caught by the captain’s hands as his jaws opened wide and a sphere of flame formed behind the rows of razor teeth. The balrog froze for only an instant to gawk before leaning to the side to dodge — but with his foot caught in the shark titan’s grasp, he couldn’t move far enough. The beam of fire shot out and punched through the balrog’s shoulder, slicing through flesh and severing the arm as the shark titan yanked him to the side by his leg. The beam kept going, igniting sails and cutting through wood on its way into the sky beyond, sending flaming debris crashing to the deck below.
Meredith threw herself to the ground to dodge the falling debris, but the lumbering balrog that chased her lacked the speed to abort his mad dash and a large beam of wood crashed down on his head, cracking his helmet as a shroud of flaming sails draped around him.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“Guess the captain agrees!” Luo shouted.
Meredith growled as she quickly climbed into a kneeling crouch and stabbed her swords into the deck. A dark red liquid began to seep from the planks as if the ship itself was bleeding, and then the wood began to warp. The creaking of twisting and curling planks began to sound like the deep groans of a giant creature in agony as the wood rose up and wrapped around the legs of the balrog — revealing the joists between the two layers of planks that comprised the deck. As the balrog ripped away the burning sails, he found his hooves had been trapped by the bleeding wood.
Across the deck, Luo was activating his own destructive powers. His fleshed bulged and wriggled, as if squirming parasites traveled beneath. Even as he continued to dodge the relentless assault of the balrog, he grew taller and wider as his muscles not just wriggled, but grew in size. Clothes ripped to reveal his flesh turning to sickly hues of purple, yellow and blue as if bruised all over. Long, hook-shaped claws grew out to replace his fingernails and his boots disintegrated into shreds to reveal bruised and bulging feet with matching claws.
As the transformation completed, the quartermaster dodged one last swing of a bone axe before launching into his offensive. His kick off the deck shattered planks beneath him as he shot forward in a blur, his hooked claws effortlessly sinking through hair and flesh and catching on bone to swing him around to the balrog’s back, which he climbed onto and began slashing away with animalistic swings of his claws.
As the battle raged on, Iris appeared for on the main deck — unnoticed by any combatants in the instant between blips. Though her body still complained about each expenditure of mana, her well was full and she put it to use. With expert application of leaps and blips she rapidly ascended the main mast towards the crow’s nest above. There was a single balrog clinging to the exterior of the crow’s nest, but she had witnessed only moments ago that a lone balrog could be a deadly threat to several adventurers.
As she neared the peak of the mast, she paused for only a few seconds to let her mana somewhat recharge before entering the crow’s nest above. From where she rested, the balrog was hidden by the structure but its position was easy to pinpoint from the roars and sounds of splintering wood,. Blood splattered away from the structure and rained down in a burst following a streak of white magic that shot out into the sky. With a racing heart and panicked breath, she completed the final blip into the crow’s nest.
Victoria floated in a corner opposite the balrog, which was reaching into the crow’s nest with a two-headed bone axe and swinging it back and forth in wide arcs. In the other corner were Eli and Hedley, spaced a few feet apart with staffs aimed at the balrog. They charged and released shot after shot, each of Hedley’s shots pierced flesh and shot out the other side while each of Eli’s buried a few inches into muscle before flashing with a subdued and muffled pop. Iris peered around the large central pillar of the structure at the balrog, which seemed completely unbothered by the attacks.
“What are you doing here?” Eli shouted.
The balrog grabbed hold of a corner post and swung around to another face of the structure, swinging its axe towards Hedley and Eli. Iris blipped behind the swing and reached out with a void-torn palm. Tentacles launched from the void and wrapped around the handle of the axe as she twisted her wrist and grabbed hold them in a clenching grip. Iris and Abby combined their strength to pull back on the weapon — Iris was flung forward onto the floor by the force of the swing, but she slowed it enough for Eli and Hedley to dodge and move out of its reach before the axe buried in the corner post.
She blipped beside them as the tentacles retreated back into her hand like noodles being slurped, “I’m saving you.”
Eli released a stressed laugh, “we only needed it because you were distracting us.”
The balrog dipped its head to peer into the crow’s nest with dark red eyes and a perpetual snarl. Its helmet was the skull of an unrecognizable creature with an angled face and a forward facing horn. Hedley didn’t waste a second, and released a charged blast from his shouldered staff towards the balrog’s head. The streak of magic impacted hard enough to knock the balrog’s head to the side, but ultimately glanced off the angled skull and shot off into the distance.
“Shut up and fight!” Hedley scolded, “we need all the help we can get!”
The balrog withdrew its head from view and with a reaching swing embedded its axe into the central pillar. Then, it withdrew completely from the windows and climbed onto the roof of the crow’s nest.
“What’s it doing?” Eli asked.
Thick, hairy fingers curled around the edge of the structure’s roof, plainly visible in the long windowed above the half-wall. Wood began to creak and splinter.