The grotesque, bulging and bruised form of Quartermaster Luo sprinted across the deck on all fours, leaving behind the shredded corpse of a balrog. He passed by Meredith, where she slowly constricted living, bleeding planks of malleable wood around the neck of her own opponent. On the quarterdeck, the Shark Titan still traded blows with the largest of the balrogs, which had picked up its own severed arm and began wielding it like a club against the captain even as blood still poured from the stump.
Luo leapt forward and grabbed hold of the starboard railing to swing around and launch himself downwards at an unsuspecting balrog as it pulled at the hull between two cannon ports. His landing on the beast’s shoulders had enough force to serve as an attack in itself, and a lucky strike with his hooked claws ripped through the balrog’s throat. It was far from dead, but the wound would ultimately kill it, so Luo quickly kicked off of it to grab hold of the dangling leg of another balrog which he clawed his way up, leaving behind hideous gashes as he reached for the creature’s wings.
Chaos still reigned inside the gun deck. A fire was burning towards the bow, but spread slowly and ineffectually thanks to the fire resistant properties of the redwood planks the ship was built from. Though the smoke was unpleasant to breathe, it helped the pirates more than it hurt as it shrouded them from view of the balrogs, whose hulking bodies back lit by sunlight were still visible through the haze. Near the middle of the ship blood had begun to drip from the main deck above, but went mostly unnoticed amidst the carnage.
Battered and bloodied pirates were dragged to the stairs and carried below to the crew quarters for healing. Cameron and Dorragth had formed an effective duo, with Cameron overloading cannons with his explosive concoctions and Dorragth lifting and aiming them at priority targets. No single shot killed a balrog, but when joined by the efforts of other pirates several had been driven back out of the ship or knocked off from where they clung to the hull with wings too injured to return.
In the crow’s nest, Eli, Victoria, Iris and Hedley braced for the worst as the balrog that besieged them began ripping the roof from the structure. Iris blipped over to the huge bone axe it had left embedded in the central pillar and aimed a void-torn palm against the bottom of its hilt. She was dangerously close to the balrog itself, but was betting on it being too focused on its task to notice her. Tentacles shot out of her palm and wrapped around the axe as her other hand gripped the hilt, and together she and Abby heaved the axe free from the wood. The axe head crashed down to the floor and cracked through the single layer of planks, but soon began to warp and shrink as it was sucked into the void within Iris’s palm. She briefly worried what might happen when the double-bladed axe head reached her palm, imagining it might slice through her hand and hideously main her — but she was relieved when the axe-head twisted and contorted down to size to fit within the mouth of the void.
Sunlight spilled over her as the roof overhead was torn away, revealing the full and terrifying form of their assailant. She blipped away as the beast reached down for his axe and his hand found only air. The balrog grunted and cocked his head in confusion, and Hedley took advantage of the moment to fire another blast at his head. The white strike of magic punched forward perfectly on target for an eye socket in the skull helmet, but the balrog jerked its head to the side in time for the blast to glance off the bone almost harmlessly.
“I need that helmet gone!” Hedley shouted as he charged another blast.
“On it!” Victoria shouted in her overlapping ghostly voices.
She quickly descended through the floor as the balrog dropped its feet to the floor of the crow’s nest and hunched over the hole in the roof it had formed. It drew in a deep breath and released a heavy, furious roar at the remaining three adventurers. Hedley and Eli dived in opposite directions and Iris blipped across the room as a hairy three-fingered hand reached out to grab at them. As they recovered, they spotted Victoria floating up behind the beast.
Victoria shifted to her physical form and dropped onto the shoulders of the beast, instantly wrapping her arms around his head to grasp and pull at the helmet — but it didn’t budge. The balrog reached over its shoulder to grab at her, so she shifted back to her ghost form and floated away from it, prompting a series of furious swats
“It’s on too tight!” she shouted as she dodged the balrog’s swipes. She knew the balrog couldn’t touch her in her ghostly form, but was happy to not let it know that yet.
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“Keep it busy!” Iris yelled back.
“Don’t!” Eli called out to Iris.
Iris appeared in the air behind the balrog with her hands reaching over her head as the blade of her great sword shot out of her palm. When the hilt emerged, she caught it with a tight grasp from both hands and swung downwards. The blade landed in the center of the helmet, sending a zigzagging crack down its length. The balrog whirled around and swung an arm at her, but she was appearing behind it again by the time it had completed its spin. Another swing of her sword brought the blade down at an angle, chipping off a chunk of the helmet on the left side of the balrog’s face. Her next blip returned her to the crow’s nest, where she caught her breath and let her mana recharge.
The balrog twisted around in search of her until his eyes fell on Victoria once more. He swatted at her too fast for her to dodge, but his paw merely passed straight through her. With an angry growl, wisps of dark red magic began to swirl around his arm as it shot out towards Victoria once more, this time his fingers wrapped around her ghostly form as it were flesh and squeezed tightly.
“Vic!” Eli shouted as he landed a blast near the beast’s outstretched elbow, popping the flesh but failing to hinder its grip.
Hedley was carefully aiming a shot at the creature’s face, his staff swaying around as he tracked the balrog’s movement and slowly honed in his aim. Victoria was forced back to her physical form as the beast’s paw squeezed at her waist and threatened to crunch her bones at any second.
“Take the shot!” Eli shouted at Hedley.
Hedley waited for one more instant, than fired the blast. It hit its target at an angle, blasting through a chunk of the balrog’s face and obliterating an eye, but missing the brain that Hedley had hoped to explode. The beast roared and its grip on Victoria faltered enough for her to squeeze herself out and shift back to her ghostly form before flying away to relative safety.
The balrog was already turning its attention towards Hedley, even as one paw clutched the bloody crater where his eye used to be. He punched forward with his other paw, forcing Hedley to toss aside his staff and dive out of the crow’s nest to avoid the strike. His winged arms spread wide and he took flight in a wide arc around the mast, and the balrog turned to track him with wings spread as if he might give chase.
“Distract it,” Iris said, “but try not to shoot me.”
Eli groaned, not even bothering with an attempt to stop her as he brought his staff to his shoulder and took aim at the beast.
Iris appeared behind the balrog once more. Her great sword was in a reverse grip in one hand while the other reached out with a void-torn palm. Tentacles shot out from the palm and wrapped around the beast’s shoulders and neck, pulling Iris in until her feet were planted firmly between the wings and the tip of the great sword was pressed against fur and flesh. The long tentacles winded around the balrog and then reached back towards Iris, where they joined her in grasping the hilt of the great sword and began pulling it towards the balrog. With Iris pushing and Abby pulling, the great sword pierced the tough hide and began slowly sinking into flesh.
The balrog roared and reached for Iris, but struggled to reach her where she now crouched between his wings. He occasionally came close, but a slight lean to either side kept her free of his grasp. The beast’s attention was split between Iris and Eli as he was peppered by blasts from Eli’s staff. Hedley appeared from the corner of her vision as he flew back towards the crow’s nest, but the balrog caught him with a swinging fist that snapped a wing and sent him tumbling across the floor.
The blade was now several inches deep into the beast’s thick torso, but still sinking at an agonizing pace. Iris had aimed for where she expected its heart to be, and hoped that any second now the blade would puncture it.
Everything lurched as the balrog leapt from the crow’s nest and flapped its wings, taking desperate flight above the main mast to escape Eli’s bombardment. The balrog twisted and flailed in the air, his wings slamming into Iris from either side on every upswing. Iris braved a glance downwards, and was shocked to be looking down at the quarterdeck far below. The main mast had already raced ahead of them as the ship threatened to leave them behind.
In a panic, she began to pull instead of push. Abby soon picked up on her intentions and joined her in trying to pull the sword free from the flesh in which it was buried. They were beyond the stern of the ship now, but Iris would have enough mana to catch up if they escaped quickly.
The sword came free. Iris fell away from the balrog as the tentacles released their grasp on it. For an instant she was floating in air, surrounded by trailing splatters of blood and flailing tentacles. The edge of a hairy fist glanced off her head — but even a glancing blow from a balrog was enough to send her into the depths of unconsciousness.
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Eli and Victoria watched helplessly from the crow’s nest as Iris and the balrog plummeted towards the swamp far below. Eli glanced towards Hedley, but was instantly sure the birdman couldn’t fly. Instead he placed his fingers to his lips to whistle, but Victoria quickly pulled the hand away from his mouth.
“There’s too many of them left to call Glimmer,” she said hurriedly, “Iris can survive the fall.”
“So we just leave her?” he demanded.
“Keep yourself and Hedley safe,” Victoria answered sternly, “I’ll find her, I promise.”
Victoria shifted to her ghostly form and shot off towards the stern of the ship and beyond.