Vol.3 Ch.15 – Island Hopping

Chapter 15: Island Hopping

The next morning we geared up and headed toward the bridge that would lead us to the next island.

Sure enough, there was a mob of about fifteen mermen standing on the bridge, with two of the giant turtles blocking access to the bridge. More concerning were the two mermen in the center, who were covered in crystal growths. Even more, one of them didn't wear a harpoon. Instead he had a barnacle-covered staff and wore sun-bleached robes that covered a lot of his body, the crystals only visible because they'd grown over both his body and his robe.

“There are merman wizards?" I asked.

“Yes," Annabella said. “They're rare but they exist. They use water magic.”

Water magic was bad news. It didn't sound all that dangerous at first, especially when you considered that water magic and ice magic were not the same thing, but water magic could do much more than just fling globs of water at enemies. That trick Alisha had where she used air magic to literally steal someone's breath away? Yeah, water mages had something similar and could fill a target's lungs with water, making them drown on dry land. But that wasn't their scariest trick. Water could grind rocks down into sand and water magic could do the same, except within seconds and with only a few ounces of water necessary. It wasn't quite as lethal as Darklight, but of all the naturally occurring elements it came the closest to that.

“How do we do this?" Annabella asked.

“Well," I said. “Since they've placed themselves in a straight line so conveniently it'd be a shame not to take advantage of that, right?”

Selene already chuckled as she realized what I was talking about. “One Icicle Crash miracle coming right up."

“Yume," I said, “once Selene starts casting her miracle, see if you can nudge any of the mermen to run away from us. That'll keep them inside the miracle for longer. Alisha, bombard anything that manages to avoid the icicles. Annabella, loose an arrow and then we'll charge in together.”

I got a chorus of “Alright”s and “Understood”s in return.

So we stepped out of the bushes with Selene in front, already using her miracle. Now that she had accepted her new role as a paladin she had become even stronger with her miracles and the new Qi techniques we'd taught her made her more powerful still. We were still thinking about trying to enhance miracles with life force but the idea of Selene being used as a conduit by a deity and then trying to amplify that god's power with her life force scared the daylights out of us. Yume had said she'd never heard of paladins with Qi techniques but she'd also said that there had been precious few paladins, or holy knights as they called them, in the southern realms.

Either way, Selene used her sword to carve the rune for her miracle into the air, the lines appearing in ice blue, flashing once and then disappearing and then a huge dark cloud appeared above her and drifted forward. The moment it was past her it started raining enormous icicles that sunk into the soft soil and almost as easily into the boulders on the backs of the huge turtles. But before it could reach the mermen the wizard waved his staff and created a huge bubble of water around them. The icicles sunk into that bubble but then the water slowed their descent, to the point where only one merman failed to evade the projectiles and that was mostly because a cluster of five had appeared above him.

That spell must have been incredibly powerful to so easily neuter a miracle I'd seen tear holes into a horde of orcs and a pair of cyclopes. Clearly giving the wizard variant the elite boost on top was just overkill.

Annabella must have thought the same thing because the moment the water wall dropped she loosed an arrow that caught the shaman right in the eye. He didn't quite drop but the herbalist fired a second one right after that hit him in the chest, finally dropping him. A moment later Alisha began glowing with both the gray-green of her magic and the white of her Qi and used both together to launch three dozen air lances at the assembled mermen. Unlike the air lances she could create by pumping them full of Qi this trick didn't have the same force of impact but it still hit an enormous area with projectiles of sharpened air. Against goblins each of these air lances would have been lethal but mermen were made of sterner stuff and while her attack killed three and injured two others, most of them were still left alive.

I used the distraction to run in with my mace and then charged up a Qi Burst to break through the already brittle shell of the first turtle, then used something I hadn't used in quite a while.

I had a lesser cloak of invisibility that could make the wearer completely invisible for ten seconds every day and I used the effect to vanish and then appear in the blind spot of the second turtle where I used a second Qi Burst and cracked its shell, too.

Yume, seeing that our original plan had gone to shit, ran past me and started swinging at mermen, focusing on the injured ones, Annabella and Selene right behind her.

I might have been content letting the women handle things but the remaining elite variant tried to blindside Selene and that wasn't something I could ignore.

I pulled out my crossbow and put a bolt into his shoulder. I had been aiming for his heart but while I missed that at least I'd hit the fleshy part of the shoulder, in between the crystal growths. Even as the elite merman was reeling I rushed towards him, Helios Edge already drawn. By the time he managed to pull the bolt out I was on him, swinging through a diagonal cut from my lower left that he only barely stepped away from, but that's when the fire enchantment of my weapon activated. The harder the sword was swung, the more heat it generated and with a mighty swing like this it caused a heat mirage that made the merman hiss in pain even though the blade had missed him by two inches.

He pulled his huge crystal weapon forward, striking my blade to push it back, but I held. I'd seen how strong these things were when Yume had fought one so I wouldn't underestimate them. As we locked blades I stared into his ugly mug and he narrowed his eyes at me before shoving back against me, trying to jump away. I'd anticipated it and let the merman create space. In fact, I used his shove to jump back myself, then brought Helios Edge back around for a thrust, activating the blade's other fire enchantment, which created a plume of fire when thrusting. The flame washed over the merman and he threw himself on the ground and rolled to put out the flames so I stabbed at him on the ground, but he managed to roll out of the way and then jumped back and started another attack.

I had to block that one and from there we danced for a few moves, trying to find our way past the opponent's weapon. I could use Qi Burst to make my strikes harder and faster but I needed an opening. If I hit his weapon it'd only jar his bones since the weapon was practically unbreakable. So I backed off and used another trick I'd cooked up. It was just a simple Qi Projection, but a devious use of the technique. I brought my sword down on his waiting weapon with an overhead swing and he blocked it easily, but then a second slash, similar to the one I'd tried to land, struck him in the back. He stumbled and I used the moment to stab him through the heart. Not wanting to take any chances I pulled a dagger from my belt and slit his throat while Helios Edge was still buried in his chest.

I looked around and saw that while I had been busy with the elite merman the women had taken care of all the normal ones.

“So," I said, panting. “This was supposed to be the hardest encounter for the foreseeable future, right?”

“That's right," Annabella said. “Unless we get really unlucky with the elite variants it'll be smooth sailing until right before the boss room.”

**

The rest of that day passed in a blur of mostly easy fights. The biggest trouble had been an elite turtle, the boulder atop its shell so tough that even my Qi Burst mace attacks could only deal chip damage, but Yume sent a plume of fire into its maw which tore the poor thing apart so badly that its shell popped and launched the boulder off. The meat had mostly been charred into uselessness but some bits had been perfectly cooked and we had a light lunch of it.

When I examined the boulder I realized that the reason why it had been so hard to break had been because at the center was a chunk of ore twenty times as big as the one on the normal variant and that was on top of the boulder being covered in a sheen of crystal. I pocketed all of it.

Now that I had enough of the ore for it to matter I asked Annabella about its effect.

“Well," she said, “the swords forged with it take edges extremely well and rings made with it take enchantments well. But the main effect is that it's imbued with water. Armor made of it is resistant against fire and weapons summon a sheen of water when swung.”

“That sounds pretty good but not that amazing," I said.

Annabella waggled her hand. “For us it might be valuable. The third floor has many fire-elemental enemies.”

I bit my lip. “So you're suggesting that we commission gear made of it after the first floor and go collect them after the second?”

“I hadn't thought that far ahead," Annabella said, “but yes, that sounds prudent.”

I started thinking out loud. “Selene's weapon has an ice enchantment, Alisha won't be able to make use of something like this, you've got your sapphire weaponry...” I looked over to Yume.

“I'm not wielding a northern blade ever again and I doubt any blacksmiths in this city could make a weapon like mine," she said.

“Alright, that leaves me then," I said. “Although I guess some gauntlets or shields wouldn't go amiss.”

“Um, if you're offering I'd take a dozen arrowheads," Annabella said.

“Of course," I said. “You're part of the team so you get part of the loot.”

She smiled.

**

The next day went similarly, though the encounters started ramping up, with more ambushes and more elite variants. I'd once told Alisha that I wouldn't like to go into a dungeon with her until she could cast Heal on her own authority and that was the first day that proved my point, with Alisha having to use her minor healing miracle seven times and the proper one another two times. Both of those were against the elite variants of the merman wizards. I was really beginning to hate those things and Annabella and I had taken to scouting ahead so that we could shoot any of them before they could start casting their disintegration rays and water barriers. The non-elite version of the wizards was barely worth worrying about as they only shot water projectiles that did little more than knock us off our feet if they hit. That might have been dangerous to a solo adventurer since the wizards always had some of the normal mermen along to take advantage of such openings but against a party of five it was barely more than an inconvenience.

But even though we finally had to start taking the enemies seriously there wasn't anything terrifying yet. The scariest part had been the transition from the second island to the third. The bridge had been pretty long and I was all but certain one of those monster fish would jump out at us any second, but thankfully that didn't happen. Annabella had mentioned that such events really only happened on the bridge that led to the boss room and that the dungeon needed to be really upset for that to happen at any other point of the mandatory route. The way she'd said that made me think that some of the dead ends she navigated us away from were quite aptly named.

Something else that jumped out at me were the ruins. The bridges were a sign of architecture that had felt rather incongruous, but I hadn't thought much of them until we started encountering ruins in the same architectural style. Such signs of civilization were fairly common in dungeons and some took to thinking that this meant the dungeons were the remnants of a lost civilization or maybe of another world, but I wasn't entirely convinced the dungeons weren't simply pretending to be more than random magical phenomena.

When we asked Annabella about the ruins, she explained that the ruins would grow more and more common until the final island, which held a huge temple in that same architectural style which in turn held the boss room.

Around what I assumed to be noon I tried to climb one of the huge palm trees because Alisha had been dying to try the fruits that grew on them and it had taken forever to find one that didn't have any of the birds sitting in them that we weren't supposed to piss off.

Once I finally managed it and harvested some of the strange yellow fruits I looked around and saw that Annabella had been right. An enormous structure reminiscent of a cathedral or a palace sat a few islands away and from what I could see from my vantage point I thought the islands were arranged like a starburst around the structure.

I assumed most of what I saw to be an illusion but according to Annabella the dungeon floor was actually that big and the mandatory route from the entrance to the boss room was actually just a tiny part of the dungeon. Apparently some of the queen's special projects were located way beyond the boss room, on the other side of the archipelago, so the only way we would possibly find those would be if we deliberately went looking for them, which we obviously wouldn't.

**

Alisha was ecstatic about the fruit. It turned out that the weird oblong yellow fruits were actually something that existed in the real world, I'd just never seen any. Then again, neither had Alisha or Selene, but Yume was familiar and Annabella knew them as a trade good from the south. They were called bananas and the leathery outer layer was actually just a peel, with the inside being a sickeningly sweet kind of berry. Apparently they could be eaten as is or mashed up and used for baking. It also turned out that the variant in the dungeon had energizing properties and Alisha demonstrated the effect by tearing through the next few encounters on her own, though I didn't know how much was due to the fruit's effect and how much was due to Alisha being happy that she'd found a new kind of fruit.

After showing off for a bit she said she was going to thank me for grabbing the bananas for her later and I had to remind her about the dangers of exhibitionism again since Annabella was with us. Alisha's response to that was:

“She can watch if she wants to.”

Later, during dinner, I finally decided to voice my concerns. I had considered whether to keep quiet or not, not wanting to deal another blow to Annabella's faith in her siblings, but in the end I decided that this was a problem that concerned all of us, not just her.

“So, how can it be that the Holy Maiden knew where to even find the dungeon entrance?" I asked as I was eating my turtle stew. Annabella frowned at me and then her eyes widened in horror as she realized what I was implying.

“You're suggesting someone showed those cultists the way in," she said. It wasn't a question.

“Yes," I said. “Of course I am aware that there are lots of suspects for that. At the very least all the royal guards know how to access the dungeon, right?”

“Yes," Annabella said. “But you're not suspecting the guards, are you?”

I nodded. “If some of the guardsmen had been in on it, you'd think they would have made sure to be the ones stationed when the cultists arrived, wouldn't you? That way they could let them in without any bloodshed. Or, more to the point, they could have led them in without producing corpses that would arouse suspicion. If there hadn't been any corpses, your mother might have ignored the feeling of discomfort the dungeon gave her.”

“A word of advice, Felix," Annabella said. There was no heat in her voice, but there was a note of caution. “I understand what you are implying. I understand that your conclusion is reasonable. I even agree with the accusation you're leveling, but do not say any of that out loud outside this dungeon. You do not get to make these accusations. Even I do not get to make these accusations openly. At best, I may be able to speak them to my mother, alone and in private, ideally with a cone of silence active.”

I nodded. “I wasn't going to say any of that out loud. But I do want all of us to be on the same page. Someone in the palace is working against the crown's best interests. Who knows, maybe the same someone who denied you your teacher. Maybe the same someone who sent that last batch of assassins.”

Annabella winced. “I just don't see what they're trying to accomplish. Ruining the dungeon wouldn't just weaken their rivals, it would weaken the royal clan as a whole. And killing or weakening me is also pointless since I have no intentions of staking my claim on the throne.”

“It may be a personal vendetta," I said.

“It could also be a servant," Selene said, surprising all of us. I had worried she'd be unable to follow court intrigue but she was keeping up just fine it seemed. “Servants always hear lots of interesting things and often get overlooked, so they might have all the opportunities they'd need to set these events up.”

“That's a good thought, but how did you know that?" Alisha asked.

“It's common sense," Selene said. “We're all thinking it might be a member of the royal family but it could also be a maid with a grudge taking advantage of the fact that everyone ignores the servants. Because, let's face it, the princes and princesses make amazing scapegoats because everyone would suspect them instead. Only problem with that is that I'm pretty sure there's dozens of servants at the palace.”

Annabella nodded. “Over seventy, definitely. Way too big a pool of suspects. If we add all my siblings and all my aunts, uncles and cousins we're easily at a hundred people who could be responsible.”

“The good thing is that we don't really have to bother with it," I said. “Our job is to descend the dungeon and find the intruders. Unless the Holy Maiden's informant decides to act against us directly all we need to do is let the queen know and keep descending.”

“There is something we can do," Annabella said.

I looked at her. “Go on.”

“I said the boss of the first floor gets killed once a week, right?”

“You did," I agreed.

“The reason for that is that it's a giant shrimp," Annabella said.

“A shrimp?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes," she said. “A giant shrimp with pincers, though the pincers aren't quite big enough to qualify it as a lobster. The thing is, it's delicious. We kill it once a week and then serve it in a huge seafood dinner we hold every week. The guards who kill it are invited as are all members of the royal family and all other guests of the royal family who are residing in the palace at the time. So if we kill the boss and bring its meat with us we could cause a big dinner to be held where just about all of our suspects are present, either as guests or as servants. Because of the intruders nobody has been allowed to come down here for three weeks so I know for a fact that half the palace is pining for another one of our famous seafood dinners. They wouldn't be able to decline the opportunity.”

“We'd also be painting a target on our backs by showing that we're the people who got sent into the dungeon to fix things," I argued.

“We already have that target on our backs," Annabella countered. “The transcript of the meeting where my mother hired you is accessible to anyone with permission to enter the records room, which includes half the servants and all of the royal family.”

“Fuck," I said.

“To be fair," Annabella said, “if we had known this beforehand my mother might have made sure the document got lost on the way to the records room.”

“Yeah," I said, “but it's still inconvenient.”

“Or convenient, depending on how we look at it," Annabella said. “If they know we're in here and then find out that we've already beaten the first floor they might get nervous and try something stupid.”

I chewed my lip. “You're not wrong," I said. “I just don't like the idea of having to plead self-defense against a royal.”

“You have a royal with you," she countered. “Nobody will make trouble for you so long as I vouch for you.”

“Alright," I said. “I trust you, Annabella.”

She blushed and looked away.

“So we'll do it, then?" Selene asked. “Bring the meat from the boss back to the palace, have a great dinner and potentially lure out the bad guy?”

“Yes," I said.

**

The next day went very well but we knew that, to get to the next rest spot, we'd need to cross the final bridge, the one that would be the biggest challenge since the fifteen mermen and two turtles.

“What's so bad about that bridge anyway?" Alisha asked.

“Well, first of all there's a fortified structure in front of the bridge where the mermen have a defensible position," Annabella said. “With you mages along that's not too bad, but the group will be pretty big and elite variants spawn a bit more frequently on this encounter. I'm expecting three or four of them. And then, worst of all, the bridge afterwards is built very low. Low enough that the monster fish can reach it if they jump out of the water. There's also a few spots where the railings of the bridge have been eroded, making it even easier for the fish to reach. It's almost impossible to avoid them.”

“You said they weren't that dangerous out of water, right?" Alisha asked.

“Compared to fighting them in water," Annabella corrected. “They still have enormous jaws. If at all possible I'd like to attack them mostly with ranged attacks and avoid their teeth entirely.”

“Couldn't we just avoid them entirely with Yume's inconspicuousness spell?" Selene asked.

Annabella gave a strained smile. “We could, but their meat would make the seafood dinner we're trying to get going much more attractive.”

Selene groaned. “So we have to risk our lives so that we can risk our lives again later? Great.”

“The reward for a job well done..." I began and Yume finished for me:

“... is another job.”