Chương 56: BECMI Chapter 55 – The Last Sunken Hurdles

We all looked out the back windows of the Inn. Ocean spray roared over the rocks, surging forward and breaking over the edge of the Inn. The water couldn't break the Inn down, but it found all the holes that it could in the roof and walls. There were continuous leaks streaming in, and out just as slowly through the open door. There had been a savage band of shark-men here, led by a four-armed mutant wielding a spear or trident in every single hand!

They had been skilled and savage, and even had a Cleric among them, who had Summoned in some sharks down in the entry point, and had set a Water Elemental to guarding it. We had watched the lands surrounding the Inn sinking, sinking, and sinking with every single jump for the last two days. We had maybe two hours of time left on this night, and the ocean was breaking over us. We could all smell the brine and rot, and we were calf-deep in water.

In every direction, the ground had flattened out, much of it vanishing below the waves, while ice built up on everything, making it looking like we were in a massive bowl only shaken apart by storms rupturing the ice field, stacking up into massive walls around the Inn as the waters broke and froze.

"Get everything in the middens NOW, and we get out of here as fast as we can!" I ordered, and everyone jolted into motion.

"Only loot if you have nothing to do! Otherwise, wait by the entry!" The Airy Water I'd put up by the entry was still in force there, but didn't cover the whole of the basement. I walked over to the stairs down, the second Airy Water around myself reaching down to touch the other one in the pool down there, and those with nothing to do hurried past me to get into formation. There were spoils, but only two Disks to throw things on, a Spear and a Trident from the mutant prominent.

Cirru pushed them downstairs quickly as what coins we found made their way onto the Disks. Some of them had probably been found and hoarded by those in the previous jumps, after all, so we were hardly worried about them. I swept in after the last dwarf hustled past me, closing the door and heading into the basement. The water was shot through with booze from casks broken by a half-dozen sharks and a frightened Water Elemental, along with three sahaug that had dove into the fight.

It made breathing somewhat strange, and everyone was covering their mouths, as they didn't want to get drunk by inhalation at this time.

"Get in formation! To freedom or death, and I will not let you die! … although you ARE going to get wet." I straightened as the Gold Temporal Cone vanished, one more anchor point in Time dispatched, and turned back to the Portal.

"FREEDOM OR DEATH!" they roared back at me cheerfully, and I glared at the Portal in front of me, willing it to stay stable at the other end. Hanvol would pick up the Cone, now centering the second Airy Water, and was the last one out as our line surged into the Portal.

I came out the far side completely underwater, but the sphere of the Widened Airy Water was already up, so there were no issues with breathing or movement. There was the fact I popped out literally right on top of an octopus the size of a house planted right in front of the Portal, looking it in the eye as I came out. I was probably supposed to be surprised. Instead, it ate my readied Paired Greater Thorns to the face instantly, before its tentacles could possibly snap around and grasp me.

Replete with Toppling force, the eruption of Roses and Thorns unloaded streaking Skulls of energy at point-blank range into the octopus, and started hammering it backwards like it was being hit by catapult shots, or the boulders of a giant. Several tentacles were actually blasted off of the thing and flung wildly over and past the casks on the far side of the room.

The mass of the beast was pushed back, and back, and back as it split open, a warbling shriek burbling out of it as it was blown apart like explosive tracer rounds were punching into it and detonating. I had absolutely no sympathy for it whatsoever as I cleared it out of our way, mostly. Cirru came in third, and just glanced at me.

"Transform and pull that thing out of the way!" I ordered her instantly. She handed Buck her Spear and leapt forward, her form flowing and gaining size instantly, landing on the corpse of the octopus as I moved forward with her, Funf's boosted Telekinesis helping her as she hauled the massive corpse backwards with her claws buried in its rubbery hide. I just pointed at the stairs as everyone else came out.

They blinked at the sight of the massive octopus being hauled back and away between rows of caskets by Cirru, and then Bjorn and Horn and Ukker were bawling at them to get into line and position. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. Hanvol came out, looked around, and moved quickly to plant the Cone in the proper position to cover as much of the room and Portal as possible.

I pointed at Guyven in the lead, and he pushed wide the door, finding it had been wedged slightly open by debris, silt, and rubble. He almost ran right into the shark, sharks, waiting right there to receive us. The sharks started to surge ahead, but Guyven was already flat on his face and Spears were extended up in front of the others, while his Rapier was burying itself into the face of the smaller shark down low attempting to bite at his legs.

He was forced backwards, but was braced by those behind him, while lines of Spears and thrusting Blades came in from the sides and drove into the sharks as they tried to press their way in. Swimming movement was easy, they'd had weeks of practice in how to attack sharks. Lightning bounced off the wall, out into the kitchen beyond the door, and when it hit real water, exploded in what was basically an underwater Lightningball of startling brilliance in the darkness behind the sharks.

Blood was already starting to occlude the frothy mass of the Airy Water as the sharks struggled to get at the food and activity down here, the smell of the dead octopus's shredded carcass driving them wild with bloodlust. I moved just far enough back that most of the sharks were completely outside the Airy Water and nodded at Speaker Eryis, who simply pointed once, twice.

The elves had all loaded up on lightning spells for our underwater fun adventure, and now they went off, cooking and stunning the sharks out there who were trying to find the source of blood. The masses of floating meat were in our way, but Funf could reach out with his Telekinesis, drag the carcasses in, and send them floating towards Cirru, who heaved them off towards the corners and out of the way as gouts of dark internal fluids spilled from them, staining the Airy Water increasingly pink.

Shields and Spears led the way, no arrows possible, forming a wall of death as we advanced up the silt and the sludge into the kitchen. A thirty-foot monster of a shark was clearly visible through the window of the kitchen, how it fit through the open door beyond in doubt, unless it had 'grown up' in here.

"Probable wereshark out of sight in the barroom!" I called out, as the blot of Crimson came up in my Detect Non-Good. More sharks were converging in through that window, although the big one couldn't quite fit and was glowering at us with soulless black eyes outside.

The waiting Spears were happy to aggressively impale the sharks as they came in, turn them to the side, and expose their flanks and bellies to gutting attempts that forced the sharks away wildly, trying to flee and attracting the attention of their own. The pinkness behind us was rapidly filling the water, and the sharks were going crazy because of it.

I reached out with Funf and slammed the door to the place closed, since the bloody water could totally fill the area and then leak outside as a natural substance, drawing in more sharks through the doorway. I flicked a Split Thornray at the big shark, and it had no chance to survive. It convulsed and blurred out of sight as the screaming skulls blew it open, crashing loudly into the wall of the taproom, and we kept the formation steady around Dread' s Airy Water protection as we moved out of the place.

The place was now a hot mess of sharks whizzing back and forth through a silty mess, but I had a cure for that. I held up a blue dragonscale shed by Cirruluxul with the Rune of Water on it, and keyed it. My control radius was up to a base forty feet, but I used Widen Spell-like Ability on the basic Rune, and pushed ALL of the water in range of me out of there. Which naturally left the sharks nowhere to swim.

Like a reverse flood, the water was pushed away, the silt and muck in the air fell to the floor as dry dirt, and swimming sharks hit the floor, bounced off the tables and bar, and basically fell squirming all over the place as suddenly they were inside a truly massive air bubble.

"Four minutes!" I declared coldly, pointing.

"Kill everything!" With a roar, everyone surged forward. Glowing Spears hammered sharks to the ground, drove them to the sides and out of the way, and the whole team surged forward, spreading out to the sides with disciplined practice and knowing the ground here intimately. One of the sharks on the ground writhed and twisted and fell back into itself under the Eternal Lights mounted on a lot of helms and shields, resolving into what looked to be a nude Northman, tall and bald and cruel of eye and smile.

He held up his hands in surrender.

"Kill him. He's eaten plenty of people and enjoyed it," I said for his benefit, and the lunging Spears didn't much slow down at all, quite to his dismay. The lads raced upstairs as I followed, having to maintain a central position. Thrashing sounds were the best indicator of something in the rooms, all of them with their doors open, and the sounds of combat were quick and mean and messy.

"Kill it," I pointed, not even knowing what it was, only that it was Purple and we weren't taking it with us. The scream that came from the room was feminine, and seconds later the team was hauling out a mer-woman by her scaled tail, dead by Spear to the chest and Sword into the brain, joining the mass headed to the midden.

"One chest!" Guyven called out, running through all the rooms and taking fast inventory as the dead predators and the like were hauled and dumped. Two dwarves grabbed it and hauled it into my view, where Funf seized it, sent it over the side of the rail, and onto the waiting Disk below.

"Thirty seconds!" I was shooting the carcasses sprawled all over the floor below with Vivic Barbs, no time to get everything into a midden. It would clean them away much the same way, but it diverted my attention.

"Down the stairs, we're done!" They hustled down after me while I sprayed Vivic Barb s around and set everything en vivus. The water returned with a silent surge as the power of the Rune was spent, rushing back and sweeping through us, the current no more than a sweeping breeze through the Airy Water. The place became a messy blur again, thankfully not near as bad as the actual water, as the silt and dirt fell out of the spell's area.

"Let's go! One more time!" Standing at the center of the group, I moved with everyone in a careful group, rehearsed for tight quarters just like this, and we moved back into the kitchen and down the stairs to the basement, where Cirruluxul was waiting by the Portal, still in her larger form… and the last of a giant octopus tentacle was vanishing down her throat.