I almost laughed when I triggered the ability on my short sword. I couldn’t see the flash of the magic because of my blindness, but the pirate screamed with agony. The women behind me also screamed, but there wasn’t much I could do about their pain. I was sure they would rather suffer from temporary blindness than be at the mercy of these buccaneers.
The sight returned to my eyes a second after the pirate started screaming. The man was reeling back from me as he held his left arm up against his face. He wasn’t even trying to defend himself, and the blade in my left-hand cut open his throat half a moment later. He gurgled out a death moan as he dropped his daggers to clutch his throat, and I watched the red fade from his health bar.
“Sir Lennox?” I heard the young noble woman call out from behind me. She was covering her eyes with the nook of her elbow, and I saw tears streaming down her cheeks.
“We are fine. Hold on a few moments. Let me know when you all can see again.”
I didn’t really think I had a lot of time to loot these two bodies, but I figured it would probably take me the same amount of time to loot and wait for their vision to recover, as it would for me to try to drag four blind women to the room Allurie was in. I grabbed one of the man’s daggers first and spun it in my hand so that my UI window opened.
Haze’s Left Nail
Damage: 10% above standard - dagger
Durability - Magical
Br --
Qu --
In --
Wi --
Pe --
Ch --
Co --
Lu --
Legendary amongst assassins. Haze preferred to blind and torture his opponents before he killed them. Was he named after the daggers, or were the daggers named after him?
Set item. If Haze’s Left Nail is used together with Haze’s Right Nail, target that user damages receives blindness for 3 seconds. Effect can only trigger for a total of 10 times every eight hours. User can also see through fog or other blind effects (but not natural darkness) if holding both nails.
I was surprised the daggers had green lettering for names since the blind effect seemed really powerful, but then again, the weapon didn’t have any attribute bonuses. If they weren’t used together, they would be way worse than most green colored weapons I had seen. I picked up the other dagger to confirm that it was Haze’s Right Nail, pulled the sheaths out of the dead man’s red sash, and put the new daggers on my belt. I didn’t see any money purses or any other weapons on the man, so I turned my attention to the half-orc.
The big green-skinned pirate did have a small pouch filled with coins in his red sash, and I put it in my own coin pouch without counting its contents. His dagger wasn’t magical, nor was his earring. I didn’t find anything else of use on him, but the search took me half a minute, and the women had started to recover from their blindness.
“Sir Lennox! Your shoulder!” the well-dressed woman gasped as she pointed to the wound bleeding wound there.
“I’ll be alright,” I said. The injury actually hurt a bunch, and I thought about using Breath of Life to heal myself, but then I wouldn’t be able to use the enchantment on myself for another ten minutes, and I didn’t want to risk not being able to heal myself when I got into the thick of battle.
“Are you all okay now?” I asked the four crying women. They nodded in unison, and I checked the narrow hallway before I beckoned for them to follow me. We didn’t encounter any more pirates between the intersection and my room, but the screams on the distant top of the ship made me think that the battle was just getting started there.
“Allurie? Open the door!” I shouted as I pounded on our room door. The pretty elven girl did so immediately, and she smiled at me.
“Leo! I was so lonely. I’m so glad you have retu--”
“Here, watch over these girls. It is your new job,” I said as I gestured to the four teary eyed young women.
“I love jobs!” the elf giggled as she beckoned for the women to come inside.
“Thanks, I’ll be back soon. Don’t let anyone in. Understand?” I asked her again.
“You aren’t going to stay? I know you have romantic feelings for Cornalic, but these four women are really beautiful, especially the one with the nice clothes. I would think that even a man that prefers men would want a harem of--”
“No. Damn it, Allurie! Just don’t let anyone in. Here,” I said as I handed her the twin magical daggers I looted from the pirate. “Use both of these on anyone who tries to come inside.”
“I will! Thank you!” She beamed at me. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to go find Cornalic, and then I’m going to kill a bunch of pirates. Lock the door,” I growled at the pretty elf girl.
I heard Allurie slide the lock into place, and then I turned to run up to the top deck of the ship.
Quest Completed. You have been awarded 4 attribute points.
That brought my total unspent points to 53. I was in for a serious power up when I decided to spend them.
But first, I had some pirates to destroy.
Chapter 2
I didn’t run into any more pirates below deck, but top side was a whole different story. The battle on our large ship was complete chaos, and it took me a full ten seconds to get accustomed to the sunlight and to figure out what was actually going on.
The pirate ship had somehow tied itself to our larger ship, and I counted forty bare-chested men wearing red or purple sashes on our boat. Most of the melees against the crew of our ship were an even match where one of the uniformed men squared off against one of the pirates, but I saw a handful of smaller battles where there were two pirates against one of ours. The pirates also seemed to be muscular warrior men of either human, half-orc, or goblin race. A good fifth of our crew was made of boys, and the young men were outclassed. I’d been in enough full-scale PvP brawls to get a sense of the tide of battle, and I realized that if I had shown up a minute later, it might have been too late.
I didn’t see Cornalic and that kind of worried me. I didn’t see his health bar on my UI, and I wondered if it meant that the strange half-orc was dead. The thought made my heart heavy, but I decided to worry more about it after I dealt with all these pirate assholes.
There was space up here to swing a longer blade, so I sheathed my non-magical short sword, transferred my magical one to my left hand, and then pulled the broadsword that Gratia had given me from its sheath with my right. It felt good to hold the longer weapon, and I stepped toward the melee closest to me.
A goblin was attacking a boy, and my sword took the short ugly creature’s club arm off with ease. The monster screamed with surprise, but I whipped my blade around to take the top half of its skull off.
“Leo!” the boy yelled, and I realized I had just saved Tarry, the boy who Cornalic and I met on the tour when we boarded the First Sunset.
“Have you seen Cornalic?” I asked him as a pair of human pirates rushed toward us.
“I saw him when the battle started, but that was a long time ago. You are hurt!”
“I’ll be alright,” I said as the men slowed their run to melee with me. Each of them held basket hilted cutlasses, and the one to my right made an aggressive stab toward my injured shoulder.
I knocked aside his blade and riposted a thrust at his face. My shoulder screamed with the attempt, and my arm went numb for half a second. The sensation caused my attack to slow, and the pirate was able to dodge out of the way by stumbling back.
The man on my left made an overhead hacking strike at me. It was clumsy, and I was able to slide to the side of it by shuffling my feet in the direction the other pirate moved. As soon as his cutlass went wide, I thrust up with my magical short sword. The tip of the blade connected with the lower part of his jaw and his health bar lost its red coloring instantly.
One down. At least thirty more to go.
The man who had dodged my attack waved his cutlass at me as if he was trying to ward off an angry bee. I alm
ost wondered if he wanted to trick me into engaging with him, but his eyes looked wide with terror, and I guessed he might have been a new member of their crew. Too bad for him. The asshole picked the wrong ship to attack, and now they were all going to pay.
My shoulder screamed again when I knocked his cutlass aside with my broadsword, but I expected the sensation now, and I pushed my hilt along the length of his blade. Our grips connected and then locked, but while he held only one sword, I carried two, and he was unable to pull his weapon free. My shorter blade swung out and punched four holes into the side of his chest. He screamed with each stab, but his voice choked off with my last one, and I kicked him away in time to parry a charging stab from a half-orc who was almost as large as Cornalic.
My new opponent was covered with ugly scars. He wielded a rapier in his right hand and a buckler in the other. He flicked his quick sword away from my parry and made another slash that almost took off half of my face. He fell short, though, and I brought my short sword up to catch the longer blade. The muscular man pushed against my weapon, but his eyes opened with surprise when I didn’t budge.
I swung my broadsword out with a horizontal cut. I expected the half-orc to pull away from me to dodge the attack, but he pivoted instead and brought his buckler against my blade. The impact made the pain in my shoulder flare with red hot agony, but the half-orc also screamed, and it seemed that my strike may have broken his massive arm.
I rushed forward to slash him with my short sword, but the pirate half-orc leaned away at the last second. I still felt the tip of my blade rake across his skin, and a spray of blood came from his face. His health bar dropped by a tenth, and he screamed.
My foot caught his left knee, and I heard the bones break over the sound of the screaming battle. He lost his balance, and I made the last swing with my broadsword to cut halfway through the massive man’s chest. The rest of his health bar drained, and I ripped my sword free in time to cut down another pirate that was about to stab one of the crew members.
The tide of battle shifted a bit, and I could tell the pirates had lost a bit of morale. Not all of them could see me, but I had just killed four of the sash-wearing bastards in less than half a minute. They had to have reasoned that I’d be able to keep up my pace for many more minutes.
“Yoo hoo! Oh, pirates!” I heard a voice shout from above, and I turned to look up to the masts of our ship. Cornalic was holding onto one of the ropes attached to the sail with his left hand, and he held a sack in his right hand.
Then I realized it wasn’t a sack. It was four heads that the half-orc was holding by their long hair. I also realized that the man’s profile picture and health bar were now on my UI. It must have had something to do with the distance between us.
“This is your First Mate!” the orc shouted as he tossed one of the heads down. It floated through the air for about two seconds before it bounced off the deck of our ship. Half of the pirates stopped fighting, but they still held their weapons out and tried to look up while maintaining their guard.
“This is your... hummm... Boatswain, I believe? Hard to live without that guy I imagine, dear friends. The ship might just fall apart!” The cloaked half-orc dropped another head, and it bounced off the deck with a sickening thud.
All the pirates had stopped fighting now, and a hush descended over the deck of the ships.
“Ohhh, this is your navigator. Poor fellow. He was locked up all alone in the map room. Tried to convince me that he wasn’t really a pirate and such, but he had the usual tattoos so, off with his head. Dear friends, it is gonna be hard to get to where you are going without this man, I’m afraid.”
The head hit the deck with a wet splat, and I saw three of the pirates flinch.
“And that would leave your captain. Dear friends, he may have once been a mighty warrior, but I’ll have you know that he begged for his life after I first removed his arms. Whoops!” Cornalic bobbed the last head up and down as he spoke, and the scalp parted with the skull. The head fell, and the half-orc was left holding only a length of gray hair. He looked at it for half a second, shrugged, and then tossed it after the head.
“I surrender!” one of the pirates shouted after he tossed his cutlass on the deck. The cry was immediately taken up by the rest of the sash-wearing men, and there was soon a pile of swords in the center of our deck.
“Dearest friend, Leo!” Cornalic was suddenly standing next to me, and the muscular man threw his arms around me. “I’m quite glad you are here. The going was tough for a while, and I wondered if I was going to have to swim back to Arnicoal with Allurie riding on my back. I’d make like a sea turtle, except for the laying of the eggs part. Last time I laid an egg, nothing cute or adorable hatched from within its brown depths.”
“I just got back,” I said as I surveyed the pirate roundup. “They are allowed to surrender?” I asked. “I doubt they would have offered us the same option.”
“No, dear friend, they would not have. Alas, that is what separates men like you from men like that.”
“Men like me? You don’t include yourself in that group?” I asked the half-orc with a smile.
“Dearest friend, the old me might have thrown them overboard with ropes tied around their wrists. However, you forgave me for past transgressions, so I am reconsidering my ways.”
“You just stole money from--”
“Accidentally came upon your money and still regret my pilfering to this day,” he interrupted me.
“Whatever. My point is: you didn’t try to kill me. These men did. I’m just surprised they are allowed to surrender.” I shrugged and then looked around to see if I could spot Tarry.
“I’m afraid I don’t quite know how it works,” the half-orc said with a shrug. “And now that you mention it. They probably should be thrown overboard. They did try to kill us after all.”
“Yeah. They killed a woman below deck and were about to rape four others before I stopped them.”
“Oh, dear. My opinion has now changed entirely.” He frowned and crossed his arms.
“I’m surprised you say you don’t know how it works, you seemed confident when you were dangling the heads from the mast,” I said as I pointed to the sail.
“Oh, I found four men who wore uniforms inside of their ship. I’m not really sure who they are. I didn’t ask. You know how I don’t like fair fights. I might get hurt. They didn’t even see me before I took them.” The big man shrugged, and I let out a short laugh. Cornalic was always trying to con someone.
“I’m glad this worked out. I got a bit worried when I didn’t see you.”
“Dearest friend. While your concern warms my half-orcish heart almost to its melting point, you have no need to worry about me. I swore to your fine friends that I would take care of you. Speaking of that, how is Allurie?”
“She should be fine. I left her in the room with four other women I saved. Let’s go make sure they are okay and then help the crew clean up these assholes.” I nodded toward the steps leading below deck, and the half-orc followed me after he drew his blades.
We didn’t encounter any more pirates on the way to my room, but that didn’t mean there weren’t any more lurking down here. Every ten feet Cornalic would pause, listen for a few moments, and then gesture for me to continue onward. We eventually came to our door, and I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw it was undamaged.
“Allurie, we are here. Open up,” I said as I knocked on the door.
“Yay! Leo is here!” the beautiful elf said as she opened the door. The other four women were also safe inside, and the group of humans asked me if it was over.
“The pirates surrendered. Cornalic killed a bunch of their officers, and they gave up. There might still be some down below, but we wanted to check and make sure that you were all okay before we did a sweep,” I said to the terrified women.
“Yay for Leo and Cornalic. Aren’t they wonderful?” Allurie asked the other women as she clapped her hands together and bounced up and dow
n. Each of her jumping movements almost made her head smack into the low ceiling.
“Yes, they are,” said the well-dressed woman as she stared at us.
“My dear ladies, it was nothing. I’m just an average half-orc with an above average grin and a loving heart. In truth, I like to believe that we are all heroes to many. When I was just a poor orphan, I used to work in the glass shop as the apprentice blower.”
“Let me guess, they said you were full of hot air?” I asked the man with a snicker.
“How did you know, dearest friend, Leo? That was exactly what they said. They paid me well, though, two coppers a day. Of course, I had to give one of those coppers to the local thieves guild, which also ran the city guard, but that one last copper allowed me to buy a loaf of bread that I shared with the thirty other orphans I watched over. They called me a hero then, and in truth, that is what motivates me to do such deeds. I just think of all the children who need my help. Oh, and Leo, he’s become a champion to my heart, and I aspire to be the kind of man that he is.”
“That is so romantic,” Allurie said as she fluttered her eyelashes at the half-orc.
“Thank you both for your help,” the noblewoman said with a grateful smile. She gestured to Cornalic and raised an eyebrow. “What is your family name?”
“Fairest noblewoman. I have no family other than the two you have already met. I go by Cornalic of the Mind if it suits you.”
“Ahh, so you are skilled in Mind magic then?” she asked with wide eyes.
“Nay, dear lady. That is why I like the name so much.”
“Oh, I see.” She looked confused and glanced at me, but I could only shrug at the half-orc’s antics.
“We need to help search the ship,” I said as I stepped out of the room again.
“Very well. Sir Lennox, and Sir Cornalic of the Mind. I thank you again.”
“No worries. I wished I’d been a bit quicker so that I could have saved your other servant.”
Lion's Quest: Trinity: A LitRPG Saga Page 2
