Yo ho ho, it's time for a Nightmare...

There were a lot of giants coming up off of that boat. There was no good way to kill all sixty-two of them. Once they entered the active area, they were searching for me, and the magic of the Curse made sure they would eventually find me. So, no real rest or recovery time.

That said, I was still faster than they were tactically, and I didn’t have any problems kiting them, leading them here and there, crashing through windows in either direction to open up distance between us, running up the outside walls to the roof or higher floor windows.

It was a long, drawn-out game. They quickly tried to come up with tactics to corner me, and I whittled them down. Their teamwork was unnaturally good, but they were up against me, and I wasn’t any worse than before in figuring out the weaknesses in their tactics and hitting them hard from surprise.

Tremble slowly added in Subtlety to the Slotless Enhancements on him. +4 to-hit and damage when Sneak Attack damage applied, which it basically always did, left me room for Defender to improve my AC and make me ever more unhittable, even with all their teamwork.

The only way to one-hit them was with a charge or braced against a charge, or getting that sweet crit on them. Even those didn’t work on the officers and commanders, who had been Advanced and had Health Qi dumped on top of them.

The captain of that ship ended up with 500 Hit Points after all that damn Health Qi. He was basically a legendary monster that existed just to make it hard for me to kill him. I was still a damn Deep Seven, and could only shake my head and continue on with what I was doing. Him, his first mate, and the marine commander made a lethal team that I simply couldn’t take head on, and had a damn hard time taking out sneakily.

Kind of fun in its own way, like a boss fight where the boss was controlled by a PK, ‘cause these bastards were definitely not dumb and locked into simple tactics.

As the sailors killed me repeatedly, I noticed that the tactics of the spellcasters were changing. Direct attacks and Summons were becoming less and less common, simply because they were next to useless. The only kinds of spells that were viable were those that Buffed their allies, and I could even cut those, if I wished. Direct spells cast on me were simply useless if I had Guardian up at full strength now, and 75% of the time otherwise.

So, the number of Casters dropped off, and swift, strong, and often stealthy warriors took their place. My night-time fights began to get very interesting as the rooms began to shrink. The first time the Grimm hit me in ambush, sent us through the window and outside, really did surprise Tremble and I.

The horde of ghouls rising from under the flower gardens, and the flowers turning into ambulatory poison-thorn vine-lashing, attar-clouding, seed-spitting horrors, well, it just made the front yard fight that much more intense, doncha know.

I still hadn’t made it to the second night, however.

-------------

Many, many deaths later...

I pulled a yard of steel out of the captain’s ear, riding him down as he toppled with a crash, his desperate and defiant expression frozen on his face.

And yeah, he actually had those curls, he wasn’t wearing a wig.

I tore the hoop earring off his ear. It was larger than a bracelet, and certainly big enough to Burn.

I jumped off his shoulder as he hit the ground next to his first mate, who had just stopped twitching after the torrent of blood from his throat slowed down. I went sliding across the blood-slick grass, came to a stop.

“Uh…?” Tremble asked, as we both looked around. “Is that all of them?” Kinda in disbelief.

“Yes, unless there’s more on the ship.” I looked down the hill at the oversized two-master, shaking my head. “Give me three of them.”

His pommelstone unscrewed, lifted aside with Cantrip-level magic, and I caught the three slender vials stored within.

I could make four Potions a day, to a max of a goldweight in value, barring comps, and naturally in lieu of Burning something else. But the increased staying power was worth sacrificing a day or two, especially if I could make it to the end of the sailors.

Three wouldn’t even take care of the damage from one hit, but that was fine. My Battle Vigor was salvaging more Soak out of nothing, and I spent my last Vigor as I dumped the first sour, concentrated vial of healing goodness down my throat.

Flesh shredded by the passing of swords that weighed as much as I did first sealed, and then were settled by the Potions in passing, cleaning up what the Vigor could not. The Caster Level of any Potion I ingested was considered to be my own, and if it was a Healing effect, it healed additional damage equal to my Toughness bonus (currently +7), and was then doubled. Double that again by healing an existing equal amount of temporary damage, and then on top of that converting an additional amount to temporary damage, meant Potions were incredibly powerful for a Melee like me. It was just a shame that I could easily burn through everything I made every day.

Powered lived and died by their chi or mana reserves. I was more direct: my only reserve was my Health and Soak. If I had them, I could fight. If I didn’t, I was dead.

But I had finally made it past the sailors. I wasn’t in great shape at all, but my Health was near topped, and I had at least a modicum of Soak.

I dropped the vials back into the Hiltspace, and Tremble sealed himself back up as I skate-glided gently down the first slope to the next open area.

Motion to the sides caught my eye as I skated across the level area, and I rolled my eyes.

Seriously, giant hornets?

They were as long as I was tall or longer, buzzing like nobody’s business as they swarmed and thrummed over towards me. I suppose to a child they were all too big and dangerous, and were reflected up here...

I put my foot down for the second time today, and the oversized bugs crashed rather awkwardly to the ground, bringing themselves and the winds they were kicking up down to earth.

A lot of buggy heads went flying, and I thanked the Curse happily as I drew out the poison from their stingers and sucked it down. Poison Healing reacted energetically, sending waves of new vitality through me at the rate of 1-6 HP per dose. Given the thirty or so yellowjackets and multiple doses, I happily stocked up on extras as I raided their venom for contrarian healing supplies.

If my heart rate and blood pressure topped 200 for an extended period of time, well, that’s what a 35 Con allows you to laugh off!

“Wow, it’s like the Curse sent us a bunch of healing, just so we could see what’s going on with the ship. Bet you it decides the hornets are a bad idea tomorrow!” I snickered.

This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

“No bets. It left in the vipers too long, too but eventually realized you were treating the venom sacs as healing potions. That monster scorpion was only one night, too, after you sucked its tail dry,” Tremble reminded me.

“See, you’re paying real attention.” I turned to survey the sky, making sure nothing was coming down at me out of the blue mist up there. “Well, you ready to see what the water has in store for us?”

“Damn straight.” Battle Vigor on top of the poison healing and the easy kills also topped off my HP, which was definitely a good thing. I didn’t have any more reserves, other than Potions I didn’t want to spend… but you never know.

---

I glided down the next slope, to the level stretch of lawn that ended in a built-up breakwall and walkway along the river, some twenty feet above the water, leading down to the pier the ship was docked at.

More than two minutes had passed, so something out there had glommed on to me. It had to be in the water, because there was no movement on the ship, surprisingly enough. Then again, there wasn’t anything that said the ship itself couldn’t be a monster. An Animated ship would take quite some work to take down, although I supposed it would burn pretty well.

Which actually wasn’t all that bad an idea. As I came down the stairs towards the pier, Tremble shifted to Firephasing, and then we began peppering that ship with Shardings of fire, fwishfwishfwish, fast as I could twirl him and send them out into its hull, sails, masts, and cabins. Incredibly hot flames splashed over the dry wood and caught fire with great speed. They spread with unnatural, dream-like speed, and in a remarkably short period of time, the ship was on fire, the ropes that were lashing back and forth on their own being eaten away.

I hopped on board, ignoring the fire blazing around me, and trotted over to the captain’s cabin, cutting through the simple knob on the blazing door and trotting inside as Tremble pointed eagerly.

Yeah, a large purse of jewels in a burning chest was a definite good find. The pay for the sailors could stay where it was for the moment. I could retrieve it in the future.

About then, this skyscraper-sized ship lurched and upended itself with unnatural speed. I was suddenly on a floor at sixty degrees to the stern, which made it a bit more difficult to reach the door out.

Difficult, but not impossible, as the ship began to sink even faster than it was burning, damn thing!

I ran up the sloping floor with Dragon Walk, slamming the door back open with my shoulder after it had slammed shut, back out onto the burning hull that was sliding into the depths with unnatural haste, as if its buoyancy now equaled that of solid stone.

Dream physics. Gotta love them.

I scooted over to the side and jumped up and out as the ship screamed past behind me, grabbing the edge of the pier-

And holyshit swinging myself out of the way as the long head of the hill-sized snapping turtle came lunging out of the water to take a bite out of me.

Its hooked beak-like jaws snapped shut with a crack like shattering stone… oops, no, that actually was stone shattering on the pier, silly me.

Spinal crest, intelligent eyes, flippers had claws.

Aw Hell, this isn’t a giant snapping turtle…

I swung myself up onto the pier as the dragon turtle loomed up, and shoved myself away with my arms as my legs made the same motion in the other direction, but did nothing.

Its action followed my legs, quite logically, and so it totally missed me on the juke with the superheated steam breath weapon as I slid in the opposite direction. One monstrous eye rotated and followed me in astonishment as I skidded away from it like the dock was greased. I spun and turned and was on my feet, still skating backwards and out of range of the flipper-claw it slapped down with crushing force on the pier.

I reversed abruptly as Tremble snarled and went into Stormphasing and Dragon-Killing Mode. I thanked the master of the mansion for his trophy room containing drakes, and then opened up a six-foot gash along this sucker’s webbed claw as his wagon-sized head swung back in my direction, sparks spitting in the thick hide and flesh.

The dragon turtle let out a rather pained sound, opening jaws capable of swallowing your average Buick, and snapped out at me again.

Tremble slammed into the horny jaw, flaring with deflective power, and although that head out-weighed me at least fifty-fold, I slammed it aside, leaping up as the rotating eye fixed on me, and Tremble’s ominous drone matched its growls as I cut.

Its scream as I harvested that eye was beyond my vocal range, and I thanked my Con score and Thunder Resistance for not getting my ears blown out. It tried to slam me away, but I was swinging over its head, sliding past the crest on its head, spinning around and down and, hey, did you know it had another eye on the opposite side of its head? Wonderful, wonderful, those things came in pairs! Splurch!

Blinded, it snapped its head back as I fell flat to the pier, let it whip past overhead, pause and orient on the snapping hum of Tremble, and drive back at me, turning its head and opening its jaws wide to snip me into multiple parts.

Instead of jumping, I folded right down to my shins and leaned all the way back, and effectively did a moving Archer Stand Thrust as it shot by above me, driving Tremble into its neck near the corner of its mouth, and letting its own mass and strength tear open a massive wound through nearly a forearm-length of scales and hide and muscle.

I hit at least a couple big veins, and its entire neck convulsed as twisting lightning blew apart blood and water and made something bad 50% worse, Elemental Vulnerability tyvm. The horrendous damage went up its spine to its head, and I saw small bolts erupt out its bloody eye sockets as it convulsed. I pushed myself aside as the extended neck crashed down limply.

“Fudge. I do not want to go water-diving for the dragon heart,” Tremble cursed as I spun back up to my feet. We watched as the flipper-claws released like taut cables from the stone, and the weight of its shell dragged it backwards and down into the dark waters, following after the ship. Bloop, gone.

“Not a big surprise at all,” I mused, looking up and down the length of the pier, my eyes stopping at the far end of the pilings.

Two wrist-thick strands of something were playing back and forth there. I turned to face it, eyes narrowed, before the pointed head and the first thin legs came over the edge, and the massive pincers swept up from the sides.

“Uh? Scorpion’s big brother?” Tremble asked, noting the size of the pincers.

“Lobster. Water-dwelling crustacean. Their tail flesh is delicious, as are the pincers.” I sighed as I watched it whipping around a couple hundred pounds of delicacies disguised as Sama-snipping appendages, stopping my drooling thoughts of hot melted butter. The cold and emotionless eyes fit perfectly as it pulled itself over the end of the pier, easily spreading out to cover most of the width of it.

“Vulnerable underneath, aye?” Tremble assessed.

“Just like most bugs, yeah.” We watched it start to come towards us with careful, heavy steps on the stones, feelers waving about to sample the air and touch everything carefully. Due to its size, it actually moved fairly quickly while not actually taking that many steps.

I skated towards it, and it paused immediately, tracking my motion and pulling its open pincers back to strike.

I repeated the tactic I’d used against the dragon turtle, perfectly effective since I was charging in too fast for it to adjust the path of its larger pincer coming in to pinch me in two. Down on shins, just above the ground, leaning all the way back, and punching up with Tremble still in lightning form along the seams of its carapace and legs.

It was defying physics with its size and weight, and should have collapsed under its own mass, but the basic physiology was still the same. Let loose the pressure differentials in its legs and thorax, and its legs just snapped down and back, unable to hold on as the air squealed out the path chewed down its underbelly.

The shrill sound sounded very much like boiling lobster, and I licked my lips at the smell and sound despite myself.

I rolled out sideways underneath it as its mass settled down with a multi-ton crunch behind me, tail flapping uselessly and unable to send it away from me, being out of water and all. As it beat the stone uselessly, I hopped up on its backside, trotted up along its back to the front of it, crouched down and expeditiously drove Tremble into its black eye and brain while it lay there unable to move anywhere, flailing its massive pincers uselessly.

And I promptly jumped as two tentacles came whipping out of the water to grab at me. I spin and cut a third one apart in midair, landing and sliding under two others and sliding back out of effective reach towards the walkway.

I watched as a kind of cross-shaped flower of a head rose out of the water on a thick, rubbery stalk. It had lamprey-like teeth on it, the round hole of a mouth, and the ‘petals’ of the jaw seemed to be lined with rudimentary visual organs, as well as hooked teeth.

The tentacles looked something similar to what a giant octopus would have, except for the serrations along them that heralded a kind of flesh-rending threat octopi didn’t possess. I couldn’t see the central body from my angle… but I could sense it in my Trembling Domain along the edge of the pier, moving below my line of sight closer to me, and this extended head staying mostly unmoving relative to me.

“The Hell is this thing?” Tremble asked, curious and completely unable to feel the unnaturalness about it.

I narrowed my eyes, watching the way space seemed to bend around its body, and the stone of the pier give way uncertainly under the tentacles, before reforming.

“See the way it is interacting with the environment?” I said in a low, careful voice. I could feel Tremble focus. “It’s bringing in its own reality. It’s not a part of the Curse…”