Chapter 103: Getting the Hang of it

I’m telling you it was freakin’ mermaids! Thousands of ‘em wearing practically nuthin’, fought off the scalies with their bare hands and brought me back to the surface before diving back down for more!

It sure as the Abyss wasn’t Granesh that sent pretty demi-humans to rescue us, that’s for damn sure. Those bastards got us in this mess…

• Brian Smith, Level 30 Sailor.

“Scramble! Scramble! Scramble!”

The clanging of bells rose above the shouts that multiplied, echoing from ship to ship.

Will sprinted across the water while Ria jumped from pier to pier, the frozen Saint over her shoulder.

The man’s movement speed was penalized to such a degree that he was for all intents, paralyzed.

Hopefully he doesn’t suffocate before telling me what I want to know, Will thought.

“That way!” Loth said, sprinting along behind Ria while Travis was bringing up the rear.

A dark form lunged out of the water, its webbed fingers clasping around Ria’s ankle.

The Tangled didn’t even slow down, her powerful leap violently ramming the fishman’s chest into the pier before he let go to save his arm.

Will widened his gaze and saw that Climbers were being snatched off the piers in droves as they ran to their ships.

Will glanced down and spotted even larger shadows moving through the churning ocean beneath.

Leviathans.

Will looked up and spotted the slightly pearlescent clouds he’d learned to associate with cloud coral, and by extension, sky sharks.

They’re coming in full force, Will thought.

It wasn’t the right time to pat Loth on the head for her strategy sense, but when she called an incoming attack, it paid to listen.

“Ria!” Will shouted over the storm, catching her attention.

“You wanted to save people!?” Will said, gesturing to the Climbers getting picked off in the confusion. “Here’s your chance!”

Ria nodded and tossed the Saint to Loth, who let out a squeak of surprise before Travis caught up and helped her carry him. Together those two hefted the Saint and kept running. Shimmer was within eyeshot.

Meanwhile, Ria split dozens of times over, each of her clones growing fins as they dove into the water. Jean was still wearing the Ring of Water Breathing, so the Tangled girls were their best underwater combatants.

The water around them began to churn as Ria did battle with the attackers underwater, forcing many of them to release their captured Climbers, who dragged themselves back up on the piers, shivering and gasping.

Will kept running and spotted a fishman about to pop out in front of Loth.

Will turned suddenly and performed a sliding kick that shot seaspray into the air, catching the fishman in the face and forcing him away from Loth, allowing her to continue past him.

Will’s hand caught the water and pulled himself up before he sank into the ocean, getting his feet back under him and jumping out of the way of a charging fish person, their claws swiping where his calves had been an instant ago.

A thought occurred to Will as he danced away, a face rapidly approached from under the surface.

He slammed his heel down onto the water, stiffening it for an instant as the fishman crumpled against the hard plate of water Will was standing on.

When Will glanced back up, Loth and Travis were climbing the ropes onto Shimmer as the wind and waves began to get more and more violent.

On either side, scaled humanoid forms were climbing up the side of Shimmer.

This is going to be a long night, Will thought, bursting into a sprint, grabbing Phantom Hand and flinging himself up above Shimmer’s deck, flying in a high arc above them before landing on board Shimmer.

His shin bone nearly got shoved into his sternum as the swells propelled the ship up beneath his feet, but Will didn’t have time to feel pain, scrambling forward and leaning over, taking his place beside the line of Annas leaning over the side of the ship.

“Push them off!” Will shouted to Anna, pointing at the boarders swarming out of the water, before he began hauling on the rope Loth was climbing, bringing her up to the deck

“One moment.” Loth said, pausing as Travis took the Saint huffing with effort as he threw the frozen man over his shoulder and sprinted further on board.

She turned back toward the edge and peered over for a moment before slamming her fist down on the nearby railing.

Clunk!

With a mechanical noise, the outer scales coating Shimmer flipped with explosive force, catching the limbs of the climbing fish-people and snapping them off as the orientation of the scales reversed.

The vast majority of the boarders tumbled back into the ocean, missing a hand or a few toes, but there were still a dozen or so who had managed to avoid getting a body part snipped and retained their suction-cup grip on the side of the boat.

Loth growled, holding one hand to her Amulet of Chain Casting, the other directing her claws towards the boarders.

Two dozen fishpeople gave strangled gasps of pain as wasps burst from their chests before setting upon their allies, driving them back into the water.

One by one, Ria found the ship and climbed aboard, cuts of various sizes closing as she did.

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“Hold onto something!” Loth’s voice rose above the storm.

Will craned his neck to see what she was warning of: a massive mouth erupting from the water, attempting to engulf Shimmer.

With a jolt that caused dozens of people to lose their footing and tumble into the abyss, The mouth impacted the ship, not quite big enough to swallow Shimmer.

Shimmer, half-inside the massive leviathan’s mouth, was suddenly dragged downward as the creature dove with it’s catch.

Will looped his arm around the ship’s railing, using his newly minted left elbow to secure it in place.

It felt like the world had dropped out from under their feet for an instant before a wall of water crashed into them, scouring the deck with the fury of an angry god.

The moonlight faded above as they were dragged down further and further, before Will felt a crack and a jolt, transmitted through the entire ship.

A fishman approached from above, moving swiftly as he was drawn inward, riding the titanic eddies propagated by Shimmer’s wake.

Propagated. Nice.

Will quickly switched his arm out for his leg around Shimmer’s railing, Standing up in the water to wait for the fishman’s approach.

Will finally got a good view of these new monsters. They had needle-like teeth, streamlined, scaled bodies, and large fins that splayed out from the sides of their short legs.

Every movement screamed confidence as it approached, with all the swagger of a man approaching a duck about to be dinner. A duck he particularly disliked.

Odd I can see well underwater. Must be an Acuity thing, Will thought, unleashing the Shortsword of Perserverance directly into its chest from Phantom Hand’s storage. The water had no effect on how fast it could move.

Will grabbed the handle of the sword as the stunned monster delivered it back to him, yanking it free and warding off the narrow spear thrust towards him by the creature’s compatriot.

The water was frustratingly thick, slowing down Will’s movements to a perceived crawl as he tried to fend off dozens of creatures after his blood.

I wonder If I can use Phantom Hand to grab some air and feed it to myself. Not really a long-term solution.

A moment later, Anna arrived beside him, the chubby blonde baker had grown fins, her hair creating a glittering curtain in the water as she fended off the fishmen with the help of several other copies of Ria, Jean and Bee.