< < Optional Stage Objective > >
< Defeat the Golden Slug airship >
Adam pushed the Hippogriff up above the effective firing angles of the ballistae positioned topside on the giant airship.
“Hold on!” he yelled and tilted the ship starboard, allowing their cannons to fire down.
Small crossbow bolts shot up towards them, but their ship was too far away for them to do any actual damage when they hit. However, the large Ship-Breaker ballista mounted at the bow of the Golden Slug was able to track them, albeit slowly.
However, Adam wouldn’t give them a chance to even fire it.
“Julie! Take out the crew within the bowels of the ship!” Adam ordered. “Lasse, send a ga barrage down onto the main deck!”
Ellen, Jabari, and Cathy were all below deck, manning their starboard broadside and bow cannons, firing cloud shots on repeat. Most of them whiffed, since it was a tough challenge Adam was giving them by tilting the ship and floating high above, but the cannonballs that landed took out many of the airship’s guns with their rapid expansion attacks.
When he had explained the strategy to them, Ellen had imdiately called it cheating, but followed up the remark with the fact that she didn’t care. After all, seeing the enormous Whale Eater ship was enough to make anyone think the task was insurmountable.
A cloud cannonball struck the base of the Ship-Breaker ballista and expanded to ten tis its size, deleting half of the weapon and sending the rest crushing down onto the crew unlucky enough to be standing below.
From the lodies Adam could detect, it was clear that most of the crew aboard the Golden Slug were not really that special, but they were led by cruel lieutenants decked out in the faction’s signature armour and weaponry, and these n had the ability to whip the crew into a frenzy.
Julie was just on the edge of her effective range, but she was clearly still able to make a ss out of the n below deck who were trying to escape the rain of arrows from Lasse’s special attack. Large flowing rivers of blood swished in and out of the hull through the gunports and portholes, and there was so much of it that she couldn’t control that it looked as though the ship itself was weeping crimson, since it ran down the outside of the gold-veined bone hull.
In short, their attack was brutally effective, and within just a couple of minutes, the entire topside was a cratered ss with none of the ballistae active.
The effectiveness of the assault hadn’t so much been due to the fact that the Hippogriff had more firepower than traditional airships, because none of the cannonballs had pierced through to deal much structural damage since they’d been striking the main deck mostly. No, the real power ca from its ability to easily float above and below the firing lines of the other vessel, allowing its ballistae no way to respond to the bombardnt. It also wasn’t possible for them to flee, since the Hippogriff was faster.
When Adam brought the cloud ship down onto the humped deck of the Golden Slug, he set it to match the speed of the limping giant before hopping over the side and heading for the helm where a few Whale Eaters had been able to escape the onslaught.
Julie moved down into the ship, eradicating any trace of life with a terrifying application of the blood she’d absorbed, but the others backed up Adam, with Lasse and Cathy imdiately taking shots at the lieutenants standing in front of their captain.
All of them, including Offal, sprang to action, activating their various weapons as they crossed the distance between them. So had the spring-mounted bear traps on their arms, while others had clawed gauntlets or spiked swords and axes.
Adam activated the Heart Lance spell constructs on both of his arms, firing them in quick succession and shearing them through the pirates before they could get close. The n simply fell apart, leaving just the captain who’d triggered his spring stilts to launch himself over the spells.
Cathy threw her harpoon spear right at Offal’s torso the mont he landed on the deck in front of them. He easily dodged the attack, but then she triggered her Boorang Pendant and the spear spun around mid-air and flew right into Offal’s back, piercing his armour deep enough that the hooked tip erged out the front.
Before he could activate either of his gauntlet chanisms, Ellen and Jabari surged forward, swinging their weapons through him. Then Adam shot himself forward with his Cloud Skimr Jacket and hamred his left fist into Offal’s chin with an uppercut, activating the Blood Fist Ring and sending a spike through his armoured head, killing him in an instant.
The large captain fell backwards, bleeding from all of his wounds, and then their cubes simultaneously announced, [Captain defeated.]
< < Optional Stage Objective Complete > >
< Defeated the Golden Slug airship >
“It feels almost easy to be fighting humans at this point,” Lasse remarked as he ca over to the corpse of the big man.
Then all of them blinked and then the bodies were simply gone.
“What the hell just happened?” Ellen asked.
“I think this ans we don’t have to clean up Julie’s ss,” Lasse remarked drily.
A mont later she ca up from below deck, three full orbs of blood floating in front of her. “That was easy,” she said.
Jabari frowned, his lody telling Adam that he wanted to say sothing, but he clearly feared her power too much to want to make a target out of himself.
Adam hadn’t been quick enough to gather materials from the dead pirates, but given how they all viewed his specific brand of magic, it was probably for the best.
“Before we take the ship to Iffen, we should loot it,” Adam said. “But leave behind all the gold and jewels, we can use it to trade with Lenny’s Landing. Everything else should go onto the Hippogriff.”
“I’ll handle it,” Lasse said.
Adam cast him a glance. The affliction Lasse had been exposed to had fully vanished after Adam had jettisoned their gold earlier, along with his need to hoard his wealth, but Adam didn’t know if exposure made soone more susceptible to future affliction or not.
“I’ll be extra careful this ti,” he said with a grin.
“There are three chests over by the weird steering chanism,” Cathy pointed out, gesturing at the podium with the wheel and six throttles that Offal had used to steer the ship with.
They went over to loot them before checking the rest of the ship. One was the Captain Chest, which looked like a bear trap chanism thanks to the teeth mounted below the lid, and the sharp overlapping tal plates. The other two were the standard fare giving them an upgrade and a Relic.
< < Relic Available > >
< Offal’s Spring-Loaded Stilts (Epic) — Stomp the stilts or kick them into a target to release the chanism, quadrupling the power of the move. 30-second cooldown | Can survive falling from any height >
“Do you mind if I take these?” Ellen asked. “I don’t have any special boots yet and they should work well with my Drake’s Wing.”
“They do sound cool, but I’m fine with giving up the choice if it ans I can get sothing from the Relic Chest,” Lasse said.
Cathy nodded.
“I could use those boots too,” Jabari remarked.
“ too,” Adam said.
Ellen and Jabari both gave him a disapproving look. “You can fly,” they said simultaneously.
“I’m not immune to fall damage,” he argued. “And I like kicking things too.”
Lasse grinned. “Guess it’s a rock-paper-scissors match then.”
The others agreed to that, but this ti Ellen beat them imdiately by picking scissors when they both chose paper.
She blew on her two extended fingers like they were the smoking barrel of a gun. “Finally my luck is turning,” she comnted in satisfaction.
When she put on the stilts, she imdiately beca the tallest person of their group, gaining a few centitres on Lasse.
The Upgrade Chest went to Julie, who once again got an Invocation Range upgrade. Then Adam opened the Relic Chest, revealing a rope belt, a light-brown leather bracer with feathers on the sides, a glob of lead, and a grey skirt with gemstone beads hanging down the right side on braided cords.
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< < Relics Available > >
< Belt of the Harpooner (Epic) — Enemies stuck by a projectile thrown by the wearer beco immobilised for 10 seconds. This effect can only activate once per target | When a thrown projectile is extracted, all afflictions active on the enemy have their durations refreshed >
< Rapid-Fire Bracer (Rare) — Doubles your draw speed for the next 5 seconds. 2-minute cooldown >
< Lead Coating (Rare) — Increases the impact of physical weapon attacks by 50% | Lowers attack speed by 50% >
< Skirt of the Elentalist (Rare) — Spells fired by the wielder have a 20% chance to activate twice and a 5% chance to activate thrice. If either effect triggers, they cannot be activated again for another 30 minutes | Every spell fired gives a lasting 5% Magical Disturbance affliction. Once this affliction reaches 100%, the next spell fired will be wildly uncontrollable in nature and the affliction will disappear >
Since they’d likely seen most of the Rare items for Stage Seven already, two of the options were from previous Stages, but the belt and skirt were completely new to Adam.
That belt is incredibly powerful!
The skirt would be quite good for my build as well.
“I think Cathy should take the belt,” Lasse said.
“It seems to fit my new weapon,” she remarked.
“I think so too,” Adam agreed. “We do have the Choice Ring, so we could get two Relics. The skirt would be good for , but you could use the bracer, right Lasse?”
Although Julie could technically use the skirt, her gift from the Flayed Lady covered her legs too, making it impossible for her to wear both, and besides, she hadn’t used any spells up until this point.
“I actually don’t have a lot of Draw Speed upgrades, so it would probably be wasted on ,” he replied. “I’ve focused more on damage and range.”
“Then is everyone okay with
taking the skirt and Cathy getting the belt?” Adam asked.
Jabari nodded while Julie and Ellen stayed quiet. Their lodies told him they didn’t really care.
Adam put on the Choice Ring, which imdiately started to glow. Then he grabbed the belt and the skirt, giving the forr to Cathy who put it on.
< < Relics Selected > >
< Belt of the Harpooner (Epic) >
< Skirt of the Elentalist (Rare) >
The skirt was equipped over his jeans, which was quite strange but ultimately preferable to going pantsless.
“How do I look?” Adam asked jokingly.
“Uhh,” Lasse muttered.
“Forget I asked,” Adam replied quickly. He could tell by their lodies exactly what they thought, and it was a humbling thing.
I wonder what happens if it triggers on Blink, Adam thought. Or on the Shade Barrier for that matter.
With the chests sorted, they split into groups of three, with Lasse, Julie, and Adam going into the captain’s quarters to loot, while Ellen, Jabari, and Cathy went down below deck.
“This place is filled to the brim,” Lasse muttered as he saw the piles of coins and jewels inside. It was less than during Adam’s last visit, but back then the Whale Eaters had also been affiliated with Fallow’s Fallen who were known to hoard treasure. Still, it was quite a lot, and they ended up filling five sacks with just doubloons and jewels.
“What will we buy with this?” Lasse asked. “We don’t really have a need for ship upgrades, do we?”
“I guess not,” Adam said. “I may buy a weapon or sothing.”
Once they had cleared out all of the stuff that would give them the gold curse, the pillar for the hidden chamber below stood out like a sore thumb.
Julie knelt to inspect the keyhole.
Then Adam retrieved the Slugwhale Key from his backpack.
She and Lasse gave him a suspicious look.
Then the Archer shrugged. “I know enough to not question you at this point, because of course you have a key for this.”
“It’s from the last Stage,” Adam said.
“Are you just really good at finding secrets or is your patron feeding you special intel?” he asked.
Adam grinned. “Who can say?”
He inserted the key into the pillar and spun it four tis until it produced a click which opened a trap door in the middle of the room. Small statues, art, and other valuables fell down the steps. Adam went down first and the other two followed. They didn’t seem all too concerned about telling the others, but Adam would make sure to show them the compass later, since its power was impossible to conceal without making him seem incredibly suspicious.
Down below the captain’s quarters they reached the large door, and Adam inserted the key and spun it four tis before it clicked open with a rumbling tremor. A dark chamber with a single pedestal and a black box was revealed, but before Lasse could enter, Adam put a hand on his chest to stop him.
“It’s trapped,” he said, pointing at the dust and old skeletons.
Using his magical control, he detached the tip of his tail and floated it out in front of himself, shaping it into a hand. Then he sent it into the chamber to grab the black box. The mont its fingers were locked onto the compass, Adam yanked the hand back to him.
The ground rumbled and then the doors slamd shut.
Adam pulled the compass out of the floating hand’s grasp and returned the flesh to the tip of his grafted tail.
“That was a disgusting trick… But nicely spotted on the trap,” Lasse remarked. “Or maybe you already knew it was trapped?”
“Who can say?” Adam teased. Then he showed them the secret item. The black wooden box had a compass disc of bone with the cardinal directions made of inlaid gold. The arrow pointing north was a golden triangle while the south, west, and east directions were all slender lines.
< < Secret Relic Obtained > >
< Captain Fallow’s Compass (Epic) — The object of thy desire is always within reach >
“What do you think it does?” Lasse wondered.
“It shows you the direction of anything you desire,” Julie said with utter conviction. Adam didn’t need to hear her lody to know how deeply she wanted to possess it, because the look in her eyes said so.
“Let’s go show the others,” Adam said and they left behind the secret chamber, though not before picking up the valuables that’d tumbled down there when the trap door opened.
At the top of the steps they found the other three already waiting for them. They’d co running the mont the locked door had opened with a loud noise.
“What the hell did you find?” Ellen asked.
Adam imdiately showed her the compass, which promptly halted any accusations she might’ve had.
“That’s…” Ellen started, but was for once struggling to find the words to speak.
“Really good,” Jabari said bluntly, finishing her sentence.
“Julie thinks it may point us to whatever we want,” Lasse said.
“I’m inclined to agree with that guess,” Adam replied. “Anyway, let’s go back to Lenny’s Landing and see if there’s anything we want to buy with all the valuables we found. Who wants to be in charge of the Golden Slug?”
Instantly, all thoughts of the compass were pushed aside as Ellen, Jabari, and Lasse all eagerly started pledging their cases as for why they should get to steer. Julie was still laser-focused on the compass, but Cathy just watched the others with an amused expression.
In the end, Ellen was allowed to go first, with the promise that she’d switch with Lasse and then Jabari.
“We have to get it all the way back to Iffenguard, so there’s plenty of ti for everyone to try,” Adam said.
“Then I want to try too,” Cathy said ekly.
“You’ll go after
then,” Ellen replied.
“Hey!” Lasse protested.
“Ladies first,” Jabari said with a grin.
“Before that,” Adam started, “we have to get everything that isn’t gold and jewels onto the Hippogriff.”
It took them about twenty minutes, and Adam and Julie did most of the work with their magic, but once the stuff was on board the cloud ship and only gold and jewels remained on the Golden Slug, they flew ahead with the Hippogriff while the four others stayed behind on the helm. It took them a mont, but then the fins of the giant airship started to move and they followed them to Lenny’s Landing. They’d gone quite far away from the settlent to pick a fight with the Golden Slug, but it only took them about ten minutes to get back.
Since the airship was enormous, it could hardly tether itself to the outside of the horseshoe island surrounding the settlent, so instead Adam used the Hippogriff to ferry them all across, making sure to immobilise the steering podium before they left. Not that he really thought anyone would try and steal the airship.
I wonder if we should pay the White Flags to crew the Hippogriff. I guess we don’t need them though, since the six of us can manage just fine.
After mooring the cloud ship, they returned to the settlent with all their gold and jewels, heading straight for the vendors.
< < Relics For Sale > >
< Morgan’s Slugwhale Stew (Uncommon) — Consu to replenish 100% Stamina, 50% Mana, and 50% Health over 3 minutes >
< Treasure Hunter’s Well-Worn Boots (Rare) — Allows for the wearer to traverse any terrain, mostly ignoring gravity >
< Ranger’s Lucky Charm (Rare) — Activate to cause your next fired projectile to always strike true. 2-minute cooldown >
Huh, that stew is new. I wonder if it’s there because we did Morgan’s quest?
“I definitely want to buy the Lucky Charm,” Lasse said.
“ too,” Cathy remarked.
“I only have one,” the vendor told them. He was a chubby man with a spotty black beard and a shaved head, who wore a retrofitted boilersuit, similar to the Cloud Skimrs’, but with patches added to fit his large fra.
Cathy and Lasse agreed to rock-paper-scissors, and, to no one’s surprise, Lasse won, making it his third victory in a row.
“He’s definitely cheating,” Ellen muttered below her breath disapprovingly, though she didn’t confront him. Her lody told Adam that she believed it should go to Lasse, since he was stronger.
“I’ll get the boots if no one else has any complaints,” Jabari said. “We can afford that right?”
“We have like 30,000 Doubloons,” Adam pointed out.
“Then don’t mind if I do,” he said with a smile and bought the boots, tying them to his belt.
“Can we reroll your offerings?” Ellen asked the vendor.
“What you see is what you get,” he replied.
“We probably have to visit the other settlents if we want to get a wider selection,” Adam remarked.
“How inefficient,” Ellen said.
Since they could easily afford it and it was a useful item, Adam got the stew as well.
The weapons vendor was a tall lithe guy who was strikingly beautiful, if not for the hideous burn on the right side of his face and neck. Still, he carried himself like a dancer, which Adam sohow interpreted as martial prowess.
He had the sa chain sword and shield that they’d seen before, as well as the type of long crossbow that the Cloud Skimr’s used, and a worm-eaten grey-white dried piece of driftwood loosely in the shape of a staff.
< < Weapon Types For Sale > >
< Swashbuckler (Uncommon)>
< Rifleman (Rare)>
< Cloudmaker (Rare)>
I think that staff might be water-based.
“I’ll buy the staff,” he said.
“Are you swapping out your weapons?” Lasse asked.
“No, I bought an upgrade to my Player House that lets
store weapons there.”
“What the hell? I wish I had sothing like that…” he replied.
“It’s tied to a secret vendor that’s unlocked from Stage Four,” he said.
“Do you an the termite guy?” Ellen asked. “Builder?”
Adam nodded. “That’s the one. Although it’s a woman on my island. She sells a weapon rack that lets you store weapons in your house, even if you find them in a Stage.”
“All of his furniture options were really expensive,” Ellen remarked.
“After this Stage, we’ll all have a lot of Points,” Adam reassured her.
After buying the driftwood staff and returning it to his house, they had only spent 4500 Doubloons, leaving them with over 25.000 still. Fortunately, they were able to exchange it with Shiff and the vendors for valuables of close to equal value, which would remove any risk of the gold curse.
Once they’d finished with their shopping trip, they returned to the Hippogriff where Adam ferried everyone except Julie over to the Golden Slug. Then they set sails for the south-east where Iffenguard awaited them.
It was only as Adam looked back at the massive ship made of bone and gold that he wondered what exactly would happen when Iffen ‘honoured’ his kindred who’d been slain to build the enormous vessel.
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