2) Feeding Frenzy

I had a clear shot at the one now busting out the cracked window, and I took it.

It turns out the sound of a spirit gun sounds more like distant thunder than an ear-piercing crack. But the recoil of a big old gun of a spirit weapon is what I imagine a real gun would feel like.

Its impact on the Makoan seemed equally as rough, but a lot more deadly. The creature was thrown back hard against the railing and the red line under its name slid along to the right until it almost disappeared.

So? A health bar then?

The five hovering next to the gun had changed to a four. So four shots and about a dozen Makoans left. Bad odds if I was the only one who had made some quick choices.

A six-foot-tall green-skinned muscular woman with a familiar short spiky blond haircut and a set of tiny little tusks went flying by me. She was wearing nothing but a stretched-out red sun dress that only came down to the middle of her now very muscular thighs.

Sue had gone full orc.

She hit the door, and the door hit the Makoan who was still stunned from the sound of a gunshot and the sight of his now bled-out fellow shark monster.

The door did some damage, Sue proceeded to do more. First with a kick that sends another Makoan tumbling through the opening in the railing on the back of the ship. Then a solid punch into the face of another.

From behind me, I could hear Sandy calling out. "Bless those who would stand in my defense!"

As soon as she finished I could feel a sharp warmth soaking into me. I felt stronger and more confident. It sounded like someone was playing some kind of Bard.

I could also hear Ryan yelling at Kev to get out of his way, and what had to be the third girl telling Rob to get a knife. Then saying "Oh." in a surprised but pleased tone of voice.

But more importantly, I could hear Kev yelling, "There's four more on the prow, they're coming up both sides!"

The prow is the front part of the boat, right?

The warning was enough to get me moving out the door. Stepping out into the space Sue had cleared out, I was able to half climb, half walk up the angled front of the upper cabin and pull myself over the instrument panel to the steering deck.

Sure enough, three on the right and one more Makoan on the left.

I leaned over until I had the front of the barrel only a foot above the last one on the right's head and pulled the trigger.

Three shots left. Two Makoans.

From that close, there wasn't much of the shark guy's head left over. But shooting at that weird angle almost made me lose the gun from the recoil.

In the time it took for the gun to reload itself, the two in front of Mister No-head managed to cringe, turn around, and began poking their spears up at me.

I had to take a step back to get out of their reach. Which put the top of their heads below the bottom of the deck. The Makoans were only about four feet tall. That must be why they were considered “Lesser.”

I don’t think I want to meet “Greater” ones.

So I took a moment to step up on the captain's chair and steadied myself with one foot on the control panel. All of which put me up high enough to get an angle to shoot down on the pokey-pokey spear guys down below me.

The first one froze for a moment as he put the concept of the thing pointing at his face together with his friend no longer having a head through his brain.

This was immediately followed by a bullet through his brain. Three shots left.

The third one went running forward which made me miss my next shot which I admit was a little hasty. But as he ran out on the deck I turned to try to follow him with the barrel of the rifle which made me spot another one trying to sneak up behind Sue.

I leaned forward to rest my forehead against the steel supports of the canopy above the steering deck to steady myself and put shot number three into his back.

It wasn't quite enough to kill him, but it did put him down and slid him along in his own blood a good five feet along the deck.

Then Kev was yelling from down below. "Bram, behind you!"

That gave me enough time to jump down from the seat which meant the spear point that had been aimed to go up between my legs instead went sliding up along my back. The chipped stone point dug in and ripped me up all the way from my waist to my shoulder blades.

I could feel the cut. I knew it was relatively shallow but pretty long with a lot of blood flowing out. But there was no pain.

Must be an Einherjar thing.

Turning around, I brought the stock of the rifle around in a sweep. Which took the Makoan in the ribs and sent it flying back along the deck.

I took a shot at it, but it saw the end of the rifle lining up with it and choose to push itself over the top of the stairs and go tumbling down it rather than get hit.

One shot left. Mister Slinky was off his feet and down the steps so I took a moment to check on Sue only to see her at the opening in the railing on the back of the ship kicking any Makoan trying to climb up the ladder from the swimming platform in the back. Rob had come up on deck and was swinging a bloody machete at the hands of any more of the things trying to climb up the sides.

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We had a machete?

The goth girl, now changed into some race with ghostly white skin and looking almost gaunt, had a clean knife in her hand as she was peeking over the opposite rail from Rob.

It didn't look like she had done much fighting, but at least she was keeping a lookout.

Ryan was only now coming up on deck with a fire axe that I had seen down below.

Seeing that everyone else was at most only in minimal danger, I finally turned to check on Slinky the would-be taint stabber.

Seeing him coming back up the steps, and freezing in place as I turned with the rifle already lined up with him, I took a moment to grin at him as I shot.

A moment that gave him time to try to throw himself to the side.

I hit him, but it only tore a bloody gash along his ribs, taking over half his health bar along with it. And leaving me with an empty rifle.

Which had a ghostly blueish-white bayonet appear in front of the barrel. Slide onto the end of the rifle and turn sideways with a hallow sounding click.

Oh. Hand-to-hand mode. Nice. I wonder if I can engage that while I still have shots left.

I didn't get the chance to try it out though. Slinky had managed to throw himself face down in front of Ryan.

Slinky meets fire axe. Slinky loses.

[ Encounter ended. You have been judged to be 24 percent responsible for the victory. ]

[ You have received a 10 percent bonus as an Einherjar for winning a combat encounter ]

[ You are now 46 percent of the way to second level ]

As my spirit rifle faded away with the end of the encounter, a voice began speaking from what seemed to be the back of my head.

"Vell dat was vell done my boy, now perhaps you should have me heal up that nasty vound on jor back. But you may perhaps vish to take the time vash your hands first."

I took a guess. "Lister?"

"Jes, or at least the spirit formed around what you remember of the doctor who figured out how important it vas for medical workers to wash their hands and instruments between patients. All I have to go on besides dat is that Listerine had something to do vith him and you think he was German. Maybe try reading a few more books, jes?"

"Oookay? So how do I heal myself?"

"Put your hands, the hopefully clean ones, on the wound and say something like "Heal" perhaps. In a firm and authoritative voice perhaps?"

"Okay. but I think stopping the bleeding is more important than worrying about infection. And magical healing should take care of anything that would cause an infection anyways."

As I twisted my hands around my back and tried to cover as much as the long cut back there, I stopped and yelled out. "I'm healing myself of a nasty but not lethal wound. Is anyone else hurt bad."

I got a mix of "Noes" and one "Just scratches." from Sue. So I proceeded with a "Heal!"

A tingling chill spread over my back and I felt the wound seal up under my hands. "Hey, Lister how many times can I heal today."

"Jou have magic points for healing, one for each vound point. You just used three for that vound and have seven left."

As I was thinking that one over I finally noticed Ryan still standing there watching me as I had what must have been a one-sided conversation with myself.

But he had done a lot of gaming himself so all he said was, "Invisible spirit only you can hear?"

"Yep."

He nodded in acknowledgment. "Wound healed?"

"Yep."

He nodded again. "Got anything left for Sue."

"Yep." then I headed around up front.

Sue did indeed only have a few scratches here and there, but she also so had a pretty good stab wound in the front of her left thigh.

It was bleeding pretty good. But she just shrugged when I pointed at it.

"Iron hide must have been close to wearing out when I got hit. Guess it doesn't make me completely invulnerable and getting hit wears it out. So? Can you heal it or should I go looking for some bandages?

I nodded and began to reach for her leg, then hesitated, "Ah, I think I should ask for permission before I start feeling up your leg?"

She rolled her eyes at me. "You have my permission in advance to touch me anywhere I'm wounded for the purpose of healing me. Now could you get on with it because that fucking hurts."

Lister updated me that I had three magic points left as Sue let out a relieved sigh. "It tickles a little."

As I was finishing up Rob announced. "Saying stats shows you your character sheet. Also, did anyone get a blue screen during the fight?"

That got a head shake or some variation of "No" from everyone. So at least I don't have to worry about getting killed because Mr blue square just had to tell me about making a level or something.

I spoke up. "Okay, It looks like we aren't in danger for the moment. But before we all start looking at our character sheets, we should have at least two people on watch"

Everyone either nodded or voiced an agreement except for the redhead. "I'll stand guard with you so you can explain to me what a character sheet is."

Well, I wasn't actually planning on standing guard first since I wanted to find out how fast I was going to get magic points back. But, what the heck. She asked, and it was always worth taking a minute to chat with an attractive woman in a bikini.

Then something occurred to me. "Before anyone gets too distracted, why don't we turn off most of the lights and cover up what windows we can? I think we're pretty visible right now to anything else that might attack us."

That set everyone to scrambling while I headed up to the steering deck with the redhead. I think her name was Sandy?

"So what do you know about roleplaying games Sandy?"

She put her hands on her narrow hips, which reminded me that she was still wearing nothing but a black bikini in what I was now aware was a slightly chilly temperature. "My name is Sandra. Sue keeps calling me Sandy but I would appreciate it if no one else did. And I don't really know anything about those kinds of games. I never really had any interest in them you know." She tossed her hair for emphasis.

Which made me notice her now pointy ears, which meant her narrow hips might not have been all that narrow an hour ago. She also seems a bit more attractive in some ways as what I guessed was an elf than she had as a human.

But she still looked cold.

Looking around I saw a pale yellow windbreaker stuffed into a cubbyhole to the side of the instrument panel. digging it out I handed it to her and got a pleased smile in return. "Thanks. I didn't even realize how cold it was until you got that for me."

"Okay. So you are going to get a document like the blue screen with a listing of your physical and mental abilities with a rating of how strong you are in them. Or at least that's what I'm guessing we’re going to get."

"You might have some points available that you can use to raise those abilities, but you might want to talk to someone before you assign them. The same thing goes for any skills or special abilities you might have."

She nodded her head. "So can you or Erin can help me? She's into the dungeons and dragons too."

I winched a bit at "the" dungeons and dragons. But at least she was willing to listen and let me try to help her. "So you took Elf as a race?"

She smiled. "Yeah, it said they were good at magic and lived a long time. It may seem a bit shallow, but growing old sucks." She pursed her lips. "Plus living a long time means I got more time to find my way home and still look good when I get there."

She shot me two thumbs up. "Still looking young and hot, with magic powers. It sounds like a great going home package."

Well, at least she has a positive attitude. Better than freaking out or curling up in a ball on the floor and weeping.

Then again these three gals had been boat-hopping their way around the Caribbean for their spring break. So either they could take care of themselves, or they had a lot of luck on their side.

Just then the third girl, Erin, Aaron, or possibly Eryn, came out onto the still bloody back deck. She took a moment to look up at me and Sandra while pointing at herself.

"Necromancer."

Then she pointed at one of the dead Makoans. "Rise!'

She ended up with a dangerous little animated skeleton standing before her. But the process of it slipping out the meaty parts of its former body was nasty enough to make Sandra choke back some vomit and made me turn my head to look the other way halfway through.

When I looked back to see her holding her hand above the slowly turning creature and commanding it in a creepy voice to "Dance my puppet. Dance." I decided to try to just ignore her as the best way to discourage her.

"So, Elf? And what else?"