The Long Road of Adventure- Blue Storms and Black Sand

by Ian Rodgers

  Just then he was thrown off his feet into Bigg Guy’s shaggy chest when the Blue Wave bucked violently as a wave crashed against its keel. A second wave slammed into the ship from the other side, and the whole craft shuddered and creaked in a symphony of wooden stress and pain.

  “By Cynthia, the storm is getting worse!” Gaelin cried as thunder and lightning roiled across the darkened heavens at a frenzied pace.

  Bigg Guy nodded solemnly. “Very loud. Very wet. Going to be annoying to dry off afterwards.”

  “Maybe we should head below deck, endure the storm somewhere drier?” Gaelin suggested, soaked to the bone from the rain and waves.

  The Ursine nodded, but stiffened and turned their gaze up into the storm clouds.

  “Bigg Guy?” Gaelin asked.

  “Go get your weapon, then warn the women!”

  “What’s going on?!” Gaelin demanded, worried by the bearman’s sudden shift in attitude.

  When the furry defender didn’t answer, the adventurer followed the Ursine’s gaze and choked on a gasp of surprise.

  In the clouds was a large, oval shape moving towards the Blue Wave. Barely noticeable in the gloom of the storm, there were only a few vague pinpoints of light that revealed it as it descended from a higher altitude. Cries from the crew went up as they spotted the approaching object and scrambled about in a panic.

  As it drew nearer Gaelin was able to fully observe it for what it truly was; a Gnomish airship. A large balloon supported a much smaller gondola made of wood and metal, while what looked like a windmills blades propelled it through the wild skies.

  Magic cannons bristled from its gun ports, all of which were pointed downwards, aimed at the ocean below. What looked like harpoons attached to ballista were being pointed at the Blue Wave, and even from a distance he could see figures scurrying at various tasks along railing and rigging, backlit by the glow from the windows of the gondola.

  Gaelin felt his heart freeze as he got a look at the image painted onto the side of the balloon facing him; a skull crossed by two jagged lightning bolts.

  “Pirates!” he uttered. He darted below deck to grab his halberd and throw on his leather armor. Unwelcome visitors had arrived. And he could tell a fight was coming, as could Bigg Guy who barreled past Gaelin to grab his own equipment.

  It took no time at all to get everything in order on Gaelin’s end, and he rushed out through the sleeting rain towards the girls’ cabin.

  “Lily! Vala!” Gaelin shouted, rapping loudly on the door.

  “What?” Lily demanded as she opened the door. Behind her, Gaelin caught a glimpse of her Druid cabinmate wearing a worried expression. He turned his attention back to the red-head as he sensed her impatience.

  “Get your gear together, both of you! We’ve got some bad company coming!”

  “Who is coming?” Lily asked, bewildered.

  “Pirates.”

  Gaelin’s words were punctuated by a fearful crunching sound. The adventurer spun around to see one of the airships’ harpoons embedded in the deck of the Blue Wind. What made this worse, however, was the chain attached to it, leading back to the floating pirate ship. And the rain-soaked figures sliding down the chain towards the sailors on the deck.

  “Get everything you need to prepare for battle!” Gaelin shouted before darting off towards the pirates.

  Lily nodded fearfully and slammed the door shut as the two women scrambled for their equipment.

  With a shout, Gaelin slammed into one of the pirates with his halberd, splitting his side open. Guts spilled onto the deck but were washed away by the storm, just like his scream which was sucked from his mouth by a gust of wind.

  But that one pirate was just the beginning. In the time it took the adventurer to reach the invaders and kill one of them, two more grappling-harpoons had tethered the pirate ship to the Blue Wave allowing more rogues to descend.

  A cutlass wielding pirate spotted Gaelin standing over the corpse of one of his companions and charged the D-ranked adventurer. The halberdier was ready for this and swept low, tripping up the attacker. Gaelin followed up with an overhead strike, piercing the pirate’s chest with the spiked hook of his halberd.

  He whirled away from another pirate with a hatchet who had tried to sneak up on him, and used his movement to spin his halberd around in a sweeping arc. The axe-head of his semi-divine polearm met with the iron blade of the pirate’s weapon. The cheaper, unenchanted metal gave way before mystical steel, and split cleanly in twain. The pirate’s arms were severed as well by the halberd continuing on, mere flesh and bone no match for its superior sharpness.

  Gaelin didn’t have time to deal with the now literally disarmed pirate and shoved the screaming brigand away with a fierce, Reinforced kick. Already the deck was swarming with pirates.

  “How many of these bastards are there?!” Gaelin cried as he stared at the seething mass of bodies before them. Off to the side, Jenner and some of the other crew had grabbed truncheons and boarding pikes and were holding off a cluster of boarders. But there were too many, and they had spread out before the bosun could rally the crew to drive them off.

  Gaelin’s shock only grew as he heard a roar, and Bigg Guy appeared, bowling into a group of pirates, his wooden club lashing out. Bones shattered with every stroke and bodies went flying. More than a few of those struck by the tree trunk were sent overboard.

  The Ursine’s strength was no joke, and the pirates screamed in terror trying to avoid him. Not to mention he looked like a specter of death in the dark and rain, his black fur matted close to his body and his eyes blazing with battle fury.

  “Yeah! Get them!” Gaelin cheered. He hurried over to join in the melee. A pair of pirates ran at him, clearly seeing the young man as an easier target than the massive bearman.

  One dropped dead, an arrow through his eye. His partner screeched to a halt, looking around in panic.

  “Good shot, Lily!” Gaelin shouted over his shoulder.

  The second pirate screamed and flew backwards, a harpoon punched through his chest.

  “Good shot, captain!” Jenner shouted amidst the brawl on his side.

  Gaelin couldn’t help but glance back at the ones who’d jumped to their aide. Lily was standing proudly at the top of the stairs. After taking out the pirate near Gaelin she turned her bow onto the men still trying to descend from the airship.

  The captain of the Blue Wave stood next to her, a cluster of wicked looking harpoons strapped to his back.

  “Drive these scum off of my deck, you hear!” he roared. “No one messes with Captain Joshua ‘The Harpoon’ Habbin or the Blue Wave!”

  “Oh, so that’s his name,” Gaelin said. When Bigg Guy shot the D-ranker an incredulous look he shrugged helplessly.

  “Hey, cut me some slack! This is the first time I’ve heard anyone say his name! The way his crew talk about him I was certain his name was actually ‘captain!’”

  “Head in the game, boys!” Vala shouted from the bottom of the steps, her wooden staff brandished as a faint green glow wrapped around the top. She fired off a gust of wind that crashed into a few of the pirates clambering down the chains.

  Augmented by the rushing wind of the storm, even the low-level Wind Burst spell had serious effect, dislodging men’s grips and sending them crashing down into the ocean or the deck.

  Vala then slammed the butt of her staff into the Blue Wave, and let out a pulse of green energy which rushed towards the grappling-harpoons. The energy twisted around the wood of the deck and tiny branches grew forth from it, slowly pushing out the metal objects anchoring the airship to the brigantine.

  The pirates, noticing that the link to their ship was being disrupted, started to rush at the young Druid but they were thrown back by her two male companions.

  “Keep it up, Vala! And we’ll keep the pirates off your back!” Gaelin cried. A crack of thunder drowned out her reply, but he assumed she had assented as the glow around the unwanted harpoons increased.

 
By now the pirates had realized they while they had numbers in their favor, they lacked the skill to take on the talented occupants of their target. They were being cornered, and despite the storm their loss was imminent. That only drove them into a frenzy. Cornered rats bite all the harder, after all.

  “KRANG!”

  One of the grappling-harpoons was freed from the deck of the Blue Wave and sent spinning into the air. The gale force winds of the storm snatched up the now unrestrained tether and flung it into another of the grappling-harpoons still stuck in the ship.

  They collided and the second grappling-harpoon came loose. Now there was only one chaining the airship to the brigantine.

  “Just a little bit more! Push them back and we can drive these pirates into the ocean where they can die among the waves like the salt-licked fiends they are!” Jenner cried, and the crew let out a cheer and redoubled their efforts.

  There was a deafening roar of thunder, and a wave rocked the boat. Jenner staggered back and fell to one knee.

  At first, there seemed to be nothing odd about that. Losing one’s footing in a storm wasn’t too odd.

  However, when he collapsed and fell face forward onto the deck the sailors started panicking.

  One of the crew rushed to the bosun and flipped him over, revealing a knife embedded in his chest.

  The sailor screamed. Or at least tried to. The dagger leapt from Jenner’s chest and flicked across the sailor’s throat, ending his exclamation in a gurgle of blood.

  “What?!” Captain Joshua roared.

  Vala suddenly screamed and Bigg Guy and Gaelin turned around to see another knife, identical to the one attacking Jenner, slicing at her arms and face. Deep red lines appeared all over her exposed body and her concentration was broken. The spell she had been casting died and the pirates rallied, once again able to board unimpeded.

  With a roar of his own Bigg Guy charged forward, tackling the enchanted blade. It turned its attentions on him, and sunk deep into the Ursine’s chest. Bigg Guy smirked and grabbed it, holding the dagger in place. His chest was thick with corded muscles and it would take more than a dinky splinter of steel to bring him down.

  Much to his surprise, though, the blade began to wiggle around, digging into his flesh and gouging out a deep wound. The Ursine let out a howl as he began wrestling with the dagger lodged in his body.

  “Gaelin! Above!” Lily suddenly cried, aiming at something coming from the airship.

  The adventurer snarled and spun to face the new threat, but his battle cry failed to emerge from his throat as he observed with shock what appeared above him.

  On wings of purple a man with an eyepatch descended from the airship, a finely made cutlass wreathed in crackling lightning. Beside him two more daggers danced and flitted about, deflecting the arrows Lily fired at him. The man pointed his sword contemptuously at Lily and unleashed a terrifying bolt of nature’s wrath at the archer.

  She screamed and flinched, but when no pain came, she cautiously opened her eyes and saw the broad shoulders of the captain in front of her.

  Smoke coiled off his skin, blackened in some places along his arms and chest. One of his harpoons was held out in front of him while another was jammed into the stairs. He had redirected the lightning bolt, but sustained crippling damage.

  “Captain!” she cried.

  “Damn, I must be getting old. I used to be able to take care of lightning much easier,” Captain Joshua gasped out, his tone joking.

  “Wait right there, I’ll get something to heal you!” Lily exclaimed, salty tears pricking at her eyes. She rushed off to the cabin despite the feeble protests of the captain as he fell to one knee.

  The flying man turned aside, all the immediate threats taken care of.

  “Find the half-elf! Bring him and his chest to me!” he roared, brandishing his cutlass. Cries of confirmation rose up and a dozen of the pirates broke off from the melee which had suddenly turned in their favor towards the stairs leading down into the hold.

  “No!” Gaelin shouted, leaping to intercept them., but he was blocked by the floating man who was suddenly in front of him, the cutlass clashing with his larger halberd.

  Up close, the man’s purple wings were actually a long flowing cape which had transformed into a pair of faux-wings for the wearer.

  The eyepatch augmented the aura of ruthlessness that clung to the man, and Gaelin took a closer look at the pirate captain as he traded blows.

  The man had short cropped blonde hair with a trimmed goatee, his one good eye an icy blue. Chiseled and handsome in a rugged manner, it was clear he had strength to spare from his broad shoulders and bulging muscles. He wore a black outfit styled to look like an admiral’s uniform, complete with gold tassels on the shoulders and a medal of some sort pinned over his heart.

  “I don’t care why you want Gelt, but I won’t let you touch him!” Gaelin declared.

  “Such defiance. And from someone so young. Fitting, I suppose, for one who has sold their soul to the Guild,” the man sneered, eyeing the bronze medallion around Gaelin’s neck. He lashed out with a kick at the halberdier and drove him back, before charging up more lightning inside his blade.

  “Yet you are too weak to stand a chance against me. Begone, and find your way to the Halls of Selika!” he roared, lashing out. The lightning slammed into Gaelin, and he barely had time to raise his halberd in front of him.

  Gaelin tried to open his mouth to scream, but the pain was too great. Spasms tore through his flesh and muscles and like the Blue Wave’s fallen captain he too dropped to his knees, stunned by the power coursing through him. Unlike the captain, however, the young Partaevian adventurer had no resistance to lightning and collapsed to the deck, writhing in agony.

  “Hmm? Not dead?” the man said, peering down at Gaelin’s charred form. “Oh, I see, you used Reinforcement at the last second to harden your body and prevent too much electricity from ripping through you. Impressive for a child.”

  “Captain Bolos! We found him!”

  “Unhand me you ruffian! Let go! The Guild will hear of this!”

  Two voices overlapped each other as a group ascended from below deck. In the midst of a trio of pirates Gelt was hogtied and thrown over the largest of their team’s shoulder. The other two carried the half-elf’s chest between them.

  The man, now positively identified as the infamous pirate known as the Stormbringer, turned around with a smirk on his face.

  “We have what we need. Bring him and his container aboard the Storm Caller and prepare to set sail.” He then glanced down at the paralyzed D-ranker and sneered.

  “And before we leave, give this hunk of driftwood a proper send off. A cannonade should do nicely, I think.”

  Gaelin’s eyes widened and he tried to stand, but his limbs refused to work.

  The pirates disengaged from the brawl with the last of the Blue Wave’s crew and swarmed up the chain of the last remaining grappling-harpoon. In moments they were gone, pulling their tether with them.

  At the same time, Bolos Stormbringer flew back up to his airship and recalled his flying blades to him. They returned to their master, sliding easily into the sheathes at his side.

  Bigg Guy dropped like a sack of rocks, the blood loss finally catching up to him. Vala began to fuss over the big lug just as Lily emerged from her cabin, a vial of glowing purple liquid clutched in her hands. Her eyes widened in horror as she gazed upon the aftermath of the pirate captain’s descent, and wasn’t sure whom to try and heal first with her potion.

  “R-run!” Gaelin finally managed to croak out. No one heard him. The roar of cannon fire from the retreating airship drowned out his words.

  The Blue Wave’s hull splintered, and the aft mast snapped in half like a twig. The wooden deck screeched as timbers tore and was echoed by the screams of fright from the sailors as they were thrown overboard as their ship sunk beneath them.

  Gaelin only had time to tighten his grip around his halberd before the concussive f
orce of the magical explosion sent him flying through the air and into the cold, watery grasp of the storm-wracked ocean.

  Darkness clouded his vision as it became harder to breath. He couldn’t move, and the Bluestar Ocean held tightly onto the young adventurer. The last sight he saw before everything faded away was Lily’s terrified, tear-stained face as she was hurled into the water next to him.

  Chapter 11: Stranded on the sand

  Silver. That was all he could see. Gaelin’s consciousness flickered weakly as he observed the quicksilver landscape.

  “This place again?” Gaelin whispered, looking around. He hadn’t visited this place since the Slicer had critically wounded him. He knew he wasn’t dead, but why was he here? Would he end up in this endless ocean of liquid silver every time he had a near death experience?

  He couldn’t remember much of how he’d ended up here. Water and wetness and encroaching darkness stung at the back of his mind as he tried to recollect what had happened prior.

  Examining his surroundings more closely, there were definite changes in the silvery soup he found himself floating in. For one, it was thicker and harder to move through. And in the distance hazy, indistinct shapes loomed out of the pervasive white light.

  With nothing else to do, he began to swim, pushing his way through the hardening quicksilver with steady strokes. He could fully admit he was not the best swimmer. Hells, he hadn’t done any swimming in years! Not since he had left the pond near his hometown when he was fifteen.

  But old, ingrained muscle memories urged him forward, and he dog paddled his way over to the shapes in the distant horizon.

  Hours seemed to pass, and the blurry blobs shifted and morphed into towers and battlements and elegant mansions. They were still far away, but now that he could properly observe them, he felt his spirits lift.

  But confusion also settled onto his mind. Why were there buildings here? Wasn’t this his soul? And if so, why did it have fancy constructs within it?

  Too many questions, and not a single answer.