Iris awoke to the sounds of howling wind and a creaking ship as she rolled across the floor and bumped hard into a crate. Occasional booms echoed through the hull, each accompanied by a rough jolt as if powerful waves were smashing against the ship. She groggily spotted Littletooth squeezing into the bottomless bag where it lay open on the floor. Once he was inside, she blipped it into her hand and climbed to her feet, steadying herself against the crate as the ship continue to rock and shutter.
A powerful boom filled the cargo hold as a hole the size of a carriage was ripped through the thick hull, revealing a grey wall of torrential rain that rushed into the ship alongside powerful, deafening winds.
Her first blip brought her to the crew's quarters, where ankle-deep water pouring down from the stairs sloshed around violently. Her next blip deposited her in the Galley, where Autumn, Grell and Adan were working to secure cabinets flung open by the motion of the ship while all sorts of pans, bowls and utensils slid and bounced across the floor with every sway.
"What's going on?" Iris asked hurriedly, still wiping the sleep from her eyes.
"Real bad!" Killup shouted, standing on a counter and stretching to hold two overhead cabinets closed.
A distant roar rumbled through the ship -- the call of a restless hydra.
"Everything's fucked!" Autumn agreed while chasing one of her favorite pots as it tumbled across the galley.
"The storm is growing quite powerful," Adan said calmly while tying cabinets shut with a length of yarn, "the boatswain is looking for you, he wants your help with the sails."
Iris nodded, donned her goggles, and blipped to the gun deck, where sideways rain shot through the cannon ports and flooded the ship. Despite the conditions, gunners were loading cannons for reasons she didn't have time to guess.
Blipping to the main deck was like stepping into a different reality. Raindrops slammed into her like tiny arrows, all sound was consumed by the thunderous wind, and grey walls of rain obscured the far ends of the ship.
Iris picked a mast and got to work. Loose sails were flapping freely in the winds and were well beyond saving, and instead she focused shoring up the sails that were still in place. She had taken to keeping a large amount of spare rope in her bag, which she pulled out from tears in her palms to add extra support to the sails while Abby's tentacles reached out of the bag and wrapped around beams, masts and ropes to hold her in place. It was dangerous, harrowing work, and she couldn't go fast enough to outpace the damage dealt by the storm.
Her attention was stolen by a large, winged silhouette moving through the rain above the ship. Her first thought was Glimmer, but she quickly realized this creature was far too large -- and there was more than one. Their wings were long and pointed, as were their stretched out beaks and thin, dangling legs. She watched in horror as one of the creatures swooped between masts and snatched a pirate from his perch in the sails, carrying him away in its beak.
Only Abby's tentacles saved her from being flung off the mast as the ship abruptly tilted to the side, narrowly dodging the branches of an enormous tree that appeared from the wall of rain. Cannons fired off from below, drawing her attention downward where she spotted flashes of white light from the quarterdeck.
The captain stood before the helm, leaning back with chains wrapped around either arm and gripped tightly in his fists. His peg-leg slid on the slick wood but his other leg picked up the slack and held him in place as he adjusted his pull on either chain to adjust the wings and thrusters in his best attempt to navigate the storm. Meredith wasn't with him, instead she dared to traverse the chaotic deck and shout orders to the crew while manning the sails herself.
The flying creatures -- which the captain knew to be Petresca's pterosaurs -- took turns swooping down to attack him and the others on the quarterdeck. Powerless to defend himself while controlling the ship, he was instead defended by the grotesquely mutated form of Quartermaster Luo, Dorragth the orc, and Titus in his gleaming armor. Shimmering bolts of white lightning shot from the healer's hands, closing every wound dealt to his allies and piercing through the diving pterosaurs to burn them from the inside.
A tensioned rope snapped and cracked across the main deck and slammed into a pirate, slicing through leather and flesh to briefly add a splatter of blood to the downpour. Titus sprinted past the captain and stepped up on the quarterdeck railing to send two bolts towards the woman, the first to heal the wound and the second to heal the bones the impact probably broke.
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He turned to follow a low flying pterosaur with his gaze, conjuring a long spear of crackling light that he pulled back and threw like a javelin -- passing through both of its wings as on their upswing and burning holes through the thin, stretched membranes. Spotting a weakness, he held out his palms and fired several small crackling bolts from both, peppering the pterosaurs wings with holes. It flapped helplessly and began to tumble in the air, twisting and screeching as it fell until it crumbled hard against the hull of the ship.
A limp and bloody pirate slapped into the deck nearby, dropped by a pterosaur that now moved on to other targets. Titus could see the blood still flowing in the pirate's veins and sprinted towards him. He dropped into a crouch, sliding across the rain-slick deck to the pirate's side where he channeled magic into his hands for a powerful surge of healing.
High above in the crow's nest, Eli and Hedley took pot shots at the circling pterosaurs. Hedley landed every shot, while many of Eli's blasts soared off into the storm. Rain poured on them through the hastily repaired roof, and each tilt and rock of the ship sent them stumbling to one side or the other.
"We can't keep this up," Eli shouted over the wind, "we should descend!"
"Coward talk!" Hedley shouted back just before releasing a bolt from his staff.
A few planks of wood were ripped off the remaining roof by the wind, "easy for the guy with wings to say!"
Amidst the constant, overpowering winds were even faster, blade-like gusts that sliced through the air with incredible force. The ship swayed and tilted to dodge as best as the captain and crew could manage, but each one that glanced off the hull tore of large chunks. The ship was weakening to the point that smaller pieces were tearing off even without additional impacts from the wind-blades.
Half-way up one of the foremasts, Iris began to wonder how much longer the ship could last just as the mast she clung to snapped below her, sending her careening to the side. A desperate blip brought her to the nearest intact mast where Abby's tentacles wrapped around a beam to arrest her fall and help her climb onto the beam. The sail behind her was bulging with wind, but threatened to slam into her if the wind shifted.
It was rare for Iris to make a hard call for the whole party, she usually left those kinds of decisions up to Eli or Victoria. Now was not one of those times, however. The situation was growing worse by the second, and she decided it was time to get her team out of there. She looked upwards and started plotting a route through the mess of flailing sails and ropes towards the crow's nest, where she expected to find Eli.
Just before she leapt into her first blip, a figure appeared on the nearest beam above her -- not just one figure, but three of them. She squinted through the rain, but couldn't make out any details of the silhouettes. Her awareness ability sensed someone else behind her. Whipping around, she saw the frowning brass mask of an Agent of Morose.
"My god has a quarrel with you," the agent spoke loudly but monotonously.
Iris sighed and almost rolled her eyes, "we're doing this now, really?!"
The agent shot a hand out towards her and she blipped downwards to dodge, spinning in the air as she fell away to shout back at him, "I have enough going on!"
She watched as the agents disappeared, and then she twisted around and blipped to the deck. The agents appeared around her as she landed, one of them lashing out with a short sword that she dodged with a quick lean while another approached from behind with a pair of enchanted handcuffs that were slapped away by a tentacle.
Iris groaned as she conjured her greatsword from her palm and swung it towards the nearest agent, "fuck off!" she blipped mid swing and appeared behind a different target, slicing through his fluttering robe as the form inside dissipated.
She blipped to the gun deck, then to the crew's quarters, each time the agents blipped after her. The further she descended into the ship, the more water she found. The cargo hold was thoroughly flooded, with crates and barrels floating in the sloshing waters that slammed them against the interior hull. The mechanical deck was mostly dry, but the tight corridors of the lowest deck were the worst of all. Water rushed through the hallways like a violent river, bursting through doors and invading every crevice.
With no where left to go but the hydra's chamber, she reversed her path and blipped back up through the ship. With every blip she lingered for only an instant, yet each time the agents appeared just before she blipped again -- it became obvious she wasn't getting away from them like this.
When she passed back through the cargo hold, a ghostly Victoria flew past her and the pair briefly locked eyes before the agents appeared and Iris blipped. They met again in the cargo hold, where Iris shouted quickly before blipping again.
"Plan E!"
Victoria flew up through the floor of the crew quarters as Iris appeared, "go get Eli!"
Iris dodged a dagger thrown by an agent and returned by swinging her sword towards him. He was out of her reach, but her hand released the hilt and flung the sword towards him with a tentacle reaching out from her palm to grab the hilt. The strike was too weak to cut him in two, but managed to cleave off an arm before embedding in his torso. The tentacle yanked the sword back into Iris's grasp and she blipped to the gundeck where Victoria was already waiting.
"I'll tell the others!" she shouted before diving back through the floor.
Cannons fired as the agents appeared, briefly disorienting them long enough for Iris to drive her sword through one of their chests. She hesitated for the briefest of instants with her sword buried in his flesh, staring into the empty black pits of the mask's eyeholes, but quickly resolved to think about it later and kicked him off her sword before blipping again.