Chapter Ninety-four
With the rower’s deck now devoid of any living occupants, the hold was the last place we needed to check. I asked Krissy to walk back towards the front of the ship so I could take a peek to see if any enemies were hiding down below. She did as I asked, her pace slow and sombre, the dead slaves in the rowing pits glaring at us with lifeless, glassy eyes. The marine contingent gave us a wide berth, letting us pass them, then following us cautiously from a safe distance, murmuring between themselves about the unearthly massacre they had just witnessed, and complaining about the nightmares they were sure to have for the foreseeable future.
As Krissy trod forward on the raised walkway, I stuck a few of my tenties through the floor looking for enemies. The hold was dark, crammed with crates and barrels, the few oil lanterns hanging from the support beams freshly snuffed out, small wisps of smoke still emanating from the wicks. Someone was definitely trying to hide here. Luckily, my vision — while nowhere near as good as an elf’s — didn’t require a lot of light. After about twenty metres from where we started, just before the mizzenmast’s thick pole, I found the last remnants of the enemy.
Seven barbarians — two elves and five humans — squatting amongst scattered barrels. At their feet, tied up and whimpering, were more slaves. Twenty of them, all elves. Older slaves, or those born in captivity, wouldn’t have been restrained in such a manner, unless working the oars, so I figured they must have been a fresh batch. It crossed my mind that they could even be from Solace. The barbarians of course had their weapons in their hands, curved and straight bladed daggers, all aimed at the immobilised slaves on the floor, either to make sure they were quiet, or in an attempt to hold them hostages against the rescue party.
I told Krissy to stop right above the spot and to call the marine officer closer. The man — very reluctantly — came to stand next to us, and Krissy relayed my findings to him, as well as my plan to simultaneously kill all seven barbarians. The man shuddered but agreed that it would be prudent to dispose of the enemy as quickly as possible, and I was happy that my last kills on this ship were going to be armed hostage-takers instead of helpless rowers.
I positioned seven of my tentacles right above the seven barbarians and spent a moment or two to assess the situation. Two of them had their weapons right at the throats of their prospective victims, but once I snatched their souls, I didn’t think they’d have the time to stab or cut. However, I concluded that their blades would drop right onto the throats of the poor, captured elves, and due to the weight of their lifeless arms, they could cause serious damage, or if they were really unlucky, even their deaths. The old saying was true: gravity was a bitch. Sometimes. So, I stuck another two tentacles down into the hold, positioning them around those two blades, ready for action.
The barbarians were all quiet, looking up at the ceiling, probably trying to determine what was going on upstairs. A couple of them were whispering something, and while I didn’t understand their bastardised language halfway between Treini and Orkish, I could tell they were nervous, and nervous hostage-takers were usually bad news for the hostages. There was no point waiting.
I plunged seven tentacles into the souls of the seven miscreants while sending Mana to coat the other two. Then, as I pulled seven souls out of seven bodies, I knocked the two daggers away from the necks of two elves on the ground. The blades clattered away, the bodies collapsed, some of them on top of the restrained captives. The panicked screams of the hostages were so loud even Krissy and the marines could hear it through the thick floorboards. Krissy informed our escorts that the deed was done, and they were all too happy to leave us behind and storm the hold through the nearest hatch. At the same time, Krissy and Kiwa decided this was a good time to leave the two-hundred dead rowers behind and go back to the quarterdeck for some fresh air.
***
The seven barbarians in the hold had given me 320 EXP. I had felt it flowing through my avatar body as my tentacles slurped up the liquidised souls, and I felt it land in what I called “the bank”, whatever organ or storage room that was. There was, however, a small problem. Once again, the amount of soul-stuff arriving in the bank was worth only 200 EXP, bringing my savings up to 1000 EXP, which meant 120 EXP — or two and a half human souls worth of the stuff — had gone missing under mysterious circumstances. Or maybe not so mysterious; I was sure Hank was taking some of it. Somehow. What I wasn’t sure of was whether I should confront him about it now or sometime later.
Krissy was already up on the quarterdeck, taking deep breaths of the fresh, salty air, watching as the marines brought up the first of the hostages from the hold. No-one approached us to give orders or make requests, and it seemed like we had nothing to do for the moment, so I decided I would not leave this matter for later.
‘Hank!’ I called out to my annoying roommate.
‘What’s up, bro?’ He answered quickly.
‘Are you skimming the soul-stuff I’m eating?’ I asked him without any preamble, opting for the direct approach.
‘Oh, you noticed that?’ he said as nonchalantly as I’d ever heard him, not even trying to deny it.
Typical, bloody Hank. Of course he was skimming it.
‘Why?’ I asked him.
‘What do you mean why? You’re not the only one who’s been working hard, you know, so give your brother a break. I deserve a little bit of it. I’m Hank.’
‘What are you doing with it?’ I inquired.
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‘A little home improvement,’ he said, his words giving me the impression of him shrugging. ‘Don’t get me wrong, bro, I like what you’ve done with the place, well, after I told you what to do with the place, but it needs some … homey touches.’
‘Homey touches? Like what?’ I was taken aback, and I didn’t believe him for a second.
‘Nice, fluffy, delicious soul-stuff to stock my kitchen. I’m sure you can understand that,’ he said in a sing-song voice. ‘You don’t want your brother to live in squalor, do you?’
Alright, what are you two up to? Krissy joined our conversation, and she didn’t sound happy. Maybe I should have taken this argument to our more-or-less private KHIM channel. Is this just some of your weird spirit-fuckery, or should I be worried? She demanded.
‘Yeah, you should,’ I said instantly and without hesitation.
‘No, you shouldn’t,’ Hank said at the same time.
Which is it? Krissy groaned like a mother whose two boys were accusing each other of the same wrongdoing.
‘You have nothing to worry about, I have your best interest at heart. I’m … we are your familiars,’ Hank replied first, his voice calm. He even managed to take that monster-y, growly quality out of it somehow, and that — along with the statement itself — managed to fan the flames of my suspicions even more.
‘You don’t have a heart, Hank,’ I reminded him while furiously trying to find a way to explain the situation to Krissy.
‘Neither do you, bro, we’re spirits,’ Hank retorted. And he wasn’t wrong.
‘Krissy, listen, don’t trust anyone who so casually says he’s got your best interests at heart, alright? He’s up to something, and I don’t know what it is, and that worries me,’ I said, but even I found my reasoning feeble. So did Hank.
‘Oh, come on brother! Where do you think we are? In some badly written fantasy adventure where anything anyone says is sinister foreshadowing? You can’t be serious!’ The idiot-horror protested, his voice tinged with a bit of condescension. ‘If that’s what you think, then go complain to whoever writes this shit.’
‘That’s not what I meant, you ass!’ I snapped at him, my anger finally starting to rise. ‘You’re taking EXP, and I don’t know what for.’
‘I have my needs. Like everyone else,’ he said, sounding like he was offended. Or pretending he was offended. What a manipulative bastard of a brother!
That’s enough, enough and enough! Krissy hissed into the voice-chat, rubbing her temples. Too loud. If you’re going to argue about your food, can you do it some other time? Maybe when I’m sleeping? And maybe use another of those comm-nodes? Please?’
Both Hank and I fell silent, and a certain ork captain used the pause to butt in.
Oooi! Yer gonna fuggen lemme outa here, or what? I ain’t likin’ this Hell-place.
***
It seemed it weren’t just Hank and I who thought Krissy needed a little peace and quiet, albeit for different reasons — every marine on the quarterdeck of the galley avoided her like the plague, shooting only glances at her, their eyes betraying how much they had come to fear the masked spiritualists on this day. Their unjustified trepidation aside, Krissy did look like she needed to be left alone for a while to process the events of the past hour. The fight for the ork ship had been as intense as it had been short, and I understood why it might have shaken her, despite this not being her first time killing barbarians. Even Kiwa saw it fit to keep her distance, choosing to walk around the deck and creeping the hell out of the poor marines with the laughing-mask she was still wearing.
Krissy sat quietly on a small crate, leaning against the guardrail at the edge, watching the sky slowly turn orange as the sun began to disappear behind the horizon. Misery-mask still covering her face, I was the only one who saw and heard her occasional sobs and sniffs. I felt tempted to think that with time and experience she’d get used to this sort of thing, maybe even become a Chuck Norris-Terminator hybrid like Fenirig Arte. After all the things we’d been through, it was easy to forget that she was a nineteen year old woman — maybe twenty now — and perhaps this kind of life wasn’t the best for her. Unfortunately, our foreseeable future contained similar fights and struggles, and while I knew I could protect Krissy, at least physically, I worried that even if we won every fight, she might lose in other ways. Was there anything I could do about it? Maybe, maybe not.
Another thing I could do very little about at the moment, was Hank. I was one hundred percent sure he was up to no good, but I couldn’t figure out what it was he was plotting.
I had limited awareness of the ongoings in our body in the Spirit World: I had a sense of my pools and rooms as I’d always had. Following Hank’s instructions I’d even managed to re-arrange them completely. I could also feel when Hank’s weird spirit-tendrils came too close to my human soul, and I could repel them at will and by will — although he hadn’t tried to do this ever since his forced evolution. Other than that, my consciousness and my senses resided within my avatar body here in material reality. In other words, if it didn’t involve my soul, my rooms and my pools, I had no idea what Hank was doing, apart from somehow piggybacking on my senses so he could see and hear what I could. Well, whatever he was up to, he wasn’t going to share it with me, that was for sure, and I was racking my brain for a solution. In vain.
Did I regret facilitating Hank in becoming the intelligent, even cunning little person he was now? I wasn’t sure. He was helpful in some ways, that I had to admit. I supposed only time would tell whether the pros outweighed the cons or not. I decided I’d let the matter rest for today, partly for Krissy’s sake, and partly because I hoped that if I focused on something else, inspiration would come like a bolt of lightning from a clear sky.
So, I watched as the marines brought up all twenty of the hostages from the hold, surgeons rushing over to examine them. Krissy watched it too, and I was happy to see a small smile appearing on her face as the freed elves — young men and women — were thanking the marines for their rescue, crying and shaking still. From the many conversations taking place around us, I learned that the hostages we’d rescued were indeed from Solace, and it seemed to have been a great morale boost for the navy personnel. The surgeons then ushered them over to the Furious Fist to be cleaned and clothed properly, and I noticed some of the marines were re-evaluating their stance on Krissy and Kiwa.
Then I saw a ranger walking across the plank that connected the Furious Fist to the ork galley.
The rangers had been relegated to work together with the marine archers, and not a single one of them had taken part in the boarding operation. The first ranger to set foot on the ork ship plonked down on the quarterdeck and beelined to Krissy.
‘Krissintha!’ Tovaron Ento called her as he arrived to stand in front of us. She looked up at him but said nothing. ‘Are you alright?’
She nodded, slowly and unconvincingly.
Toven looked her over, her cape and mask covered in dry, red and black blood, and he tried to look into her eyes, but the mask was in the way — I rectified that immediately by pulling it into Jack’s Room. Toven’s eyes narrowed as he finally saw her properly.
‘You’re not looking too good,’ he said, not rudely but with fatherly concern. ‘Let’s go back and clean you up. And you look like you could use a drink.’