Somewhere far far away ... Part 4

Somewhere far far away ... Part 4 (a collaborative story) by CaylaCatz and @panos https://budgetpixel.com/u/panos Somewhere far far away ... Part 1 (Chapters 1 to 4) Somewhere far far away ... Part 2 (Chapters 5 & 6) Somewhere far far away ... Part 3 (Chapters 7 & 8) Table of Contents (so far!) # Chapters 1 - 4 is in Somewhere far far away ... Part 1 Part 2 Chapter 5 & Chapter 6 Part 3 Chapter 7 & Chapter 8 Chapter 9 (by panos) : An Air Raid on an … Airship? (Really?) Comments for Part 4 Chapter 9 : An Air Raid on an … Airship? (Really?) Chapter 9 images and text by panos The Wizard's chapter: So, I had just gotten - limping slightly – in my cabin. I took a look around. In some ways it was like my cabin on the “Crimson Shadow”. Bunk, sailor’s chest, small table, two chairs. But there were differences. Signs of luxury: the wall-panels, the gas-lighting fixtures, the general layout. Some of them I had noticed in the hall outside, also. I wondered about the origins of this ship. Didn’t look to be designed as a raider. Perhaps it was a prize? Now, I noticed an ornate wooden bookshelf on the wall, beside the big porthole that provided a view to the bright blue sky outside. A collection of tomes, magic treatises by the look of them. On the other side of the bookshelf from the porthole was a big painting. A water-color job. It depicted a half-lit, stormy scene: A tall promontory with a vertical cliff, standing over a restless sea. Great waves were crashing on the rocks sending spume almost to the top. An indistinct form was standing there, a dark shape surrounded by a very bright light – the only bright spot in the somber, dark colors of the painting. There was something about that picture. Instead of examining the magic tomes as would be natural for me, I found myself fixing my eyes on the painting. A weird feeling came subtly over me by looking at it, I thought I heard faintly….. Whatever it was, it was cut off suddenly by the loud sound of klaxons: A-OOO-GAH! A-OOO-GAH! “What in Belial’s…” I started to say, when a voice blared at me from a grille on one wall: “Wizard!” “GAH!!” I cried, jumping almost to the ceiling. “Wizard, are you there?!” It was the Captain’s voice. “Y… yes, Captain!” “Get your a$$ on deck! We’re under attack!” “We’re what?!! We’re just out of port for Belial’s sake!” “At once, Wizard!” I took one step to the door when I stopped in my tracks. “Say, Captain…” I ask nervously, “It wouldn’t happen to be …uhh… Krakens… would it?...” ‘WIZARD!!!!!” “Aye, Aye, Captain! At once, Captain! Right away, Captain!” I rushed outside the door, running in the hall towards the stairs leading to the deck. Adrenaline made my kicked leg, which wasn’t that bad anyway, stop bothering me. I ran over the steps two at a time. As soon as I burst into the bright daylight of the deck, I was engulfed by a great rumpus. Angry shouts and screams and weapons discharges. And, over all, very loud, sharp, almost painfully high screeches. I scanned around, saw crewmen running frantically to and fro. Sailors were carrying steam-rifles of various designs, pointing them at the sky… where – I now saw – a swarm of flying monsters were hovering over the ship. They resembled women but they were hideous bird-things: biped, with feet having sharp, raptor’s claws at their ends, bodies covered in orange feathers, wings, also ending in human-like hands with long, sharp fingernails. Their heads were 2/3rd bird, 1/3rd human, with long, unkempt women’s hair. They had fierce raptor’s eyes – humanly-positioned on their faces – and deadly beaks that also had many sharp teeth in them. Those beak-mouths were open emitting those loud screeches that had a totally intimidating sound. I guessed they were using them as terror-weapons, to spread panic among the crew. I had not seen this particular type, but I recognized the general shape. ‘What in Belial… Harpies?! .. ’ Harpies they were and now they started descending on the deck, engaging in hand-to-hand combat with sailors. Claws slashed, cutlasses and long knives cut, steam-rifles barked. Blood started flowing. “Wizard!!” I turned towards the shout. Five meters to the right, Captain Nemanya was fighting, a long-barreled ornate Tesla pistol in one hand (nice job, that one) a long cutlass with a jewel-encrusted hilt in the other. Her lambent dragon-eyes were shining. I run towards her just as a particularly big Harpy rushed on her from the air, its feet-claws forward, to tear her apart. I put a spell on it that sent it head-over-heels away, its bones broken. “About time you showed up, wizard!” grumbled Namanya, just as she was shooting down another harpy with her pistol. “What in Belial’s name is happening, Captain? Where did these harpies show up from?” “It’s the gods-damned Trolls War!” she answered as I fried a trio of harpies that flew close together, with a lightning bolt from my staff. “The resulting chaos has made them bold” she continued, “They never forayed this far south before, nor so near to towns.” I heard a loud crack. Looking upwards, I saw the First crouched on top of the secondary ship’s wheel’s cabin. He had a very long, heavy looking steam-rifle in his hands and was picking off harpies very effectively. “But, what do they want?” I asked as I swirled the air currents around two harpies, breaking their wings, so that they plummeted to the ground, so far below us. “They are thieves, Wizard! They want to STEAL from me!!” she shouted, a savage fury on her face, her yellow dragon eyes even more bright. “How DARE they!” I shouted in the same tone. “Wait… what? They want to steal… from pirates?!” I asked incredulously “They don’t care what ship this is.” She shot a harpy in the back but not before she had killed a sailor. “But steal what? Loot?” “They always attack ships for their etheric regulators – condensers.” Though the battle continued to wage furiously, I detected a slight lessening in the number of harpies than chose to attack instead of hovering over the ship. “Huh? They take flight technology? That makes no sense, they can fly on their own!” A loud crack and I sensed a heavy bulk falling on me. I just barely managed to jump out of the way as a big harpy crashed on the deck in front of me. I looked sharply up to the First. He was already aiming at another harpy, his rifle still venting steam from the shot. I glared but he seemed to ignore me. Though, was that a faint ironic smile on his face. ‘Two birds with one stone, you καριόλη?” I thought irritated. Captain Nemanya shouted to a group of sailors to counter-attack at a point where the monsters seemed to be getting the upper hand. Then she answered me: “They use them in various ways. Religious is a major one – but at this time of the year, they use them as great enhancements to their mating practices.” “They… what? But in what way…. No.. <Eeew!!> I DON”T want to know!” A furious cry sounded just to my left. I turned in time to see a sailor fall dead at my feet, his body full of claw-wounds. The harpy that had killed him, screeching maniacally rushed on me. Startled, instead of a spell, I swirled my staff and brought it down on the monster’s head. My staff is from magic wood, coming from trees growing on neutron stars and it is enhanced and reinforced with strength and endurance spells. Consequently, the monster’s head cracked open like an eggshell with predictably gross results (– I know… Eeew!) “Enough of this!” shouted Nemanya. “Wizard!! Rid me of those winged thieves!!” “Aye – aye, Captain!” I answered. I focused and bound static electricity in the atmosphere through my staff. St. Elmo’s Fire started playing around the harpies’ wings. Electric shocks started biting them as the charge got stronger. Screeches of intimidation became screeches of pain. Slowly, reluctantly, the harpies seemed to come to a group decision – all of them at once, like a flock of birds (which they were) or a school of fish, they took to the air from the deck, gathered in one body with the rest of them and moved away at speed to the north. Sailors began jumping up and down, waving their weapons – at least those of them able to do so. They started cheering the Captain. Nemanya accepted the accolade with a brief nod. ‘Yes, you are welcome, people, no need bring down the place on my account’ I thought, a little irked that my contribution seemed to be unacknowledged. I noticed the First, who had jumped down from his perch, watching me with clear irony on his face and I kept my face expressionless. No need to give that A-hole more reason to smirk. I ALSO noticed that the harpies, having reached a distance of some 500 meters from the ship had stopped their retreat. They hovered there, unmoving relative to the ship. I turned to the Captain, who was giving orders for damage reports, counting of casualties, aid to the wounded – most of them to the First – ready to bring that fact to her attention. At that moment a sailor came running from sternwards, shouting for the Captain’s attention. He finished his sprint in front of us and said breathlessly: “Cap’n! The bloody ‘arpies! They got to the lower decks through the stern-hatch!...” “Blast it!!!” cried Nemanya. She followed with a word that I recognized vaguely as a Draconic swear-word. “A diversion! They’re going for the engine-room!!” I jerked as if hit by an electric current. ‘The engine room?’ I thought. ‘But… that’s where Cat is! And Melnya! …And .. and the brat!!’ Without conscious thought, I hurled my body towards the stern of the ship. Running like an Olympics sprinter I crossed the whole length of the ship arriving in the stern area in no time at all. There, in front of the small cabin that housed the sternmost hatch down to the innards of the ship, a battle was waging – or rather was nearing its end. Amidst some few bodies – crewmen and harpies – two fighters remained standing. A big harpy - the biggest I had seen so far – and that yellow-dressed chortler, Breggi. Breggi had a heavy cutlass in his hand and was wielding it skillfully against the harpy, although he seemed clearly on the defensive. I guessed this was the tail-end of a struggle between harpies that covered whatever party had gone down to the engine-room and a group of sailors that attempted a breakthrough. At that moment, Breggi, losing his balance because of a particularly savage lunge by his harpy opponent, fell backwards to land on his bottom. Though he somehow managed to keep hold of his weapon, he was now clearly in a disadvantageous position. I hadn’t stopped running and now the harpy spied me rushing towards it. It turned towards me, screeching infernally, readying to pounce on me. Without breaking my stride, I made one of my rare gesture-spells, a telekinetic one, shouting furiously: “ Outta my way, FREAK!!!” I don’t know what in Belial I did, but the harpy was catapulted from the deck to the air with incredible speed, like an inverse-direction meteor, receding upwards. It is likely that it reached escape velocity. ‘Say “Hello” to Space, The Final Frontier from me, B-word!’ I thought savagely, running to the empty now door and the stair leading downwards. I got a fleeting glimpse out of the corner of my eye of Breggi looking at me, gaping, his jaw hanging open, almost of the floor and then I was in. I stood in the underdeck corridor. There was only one direction to go and I went that way, running. I overstepped a couple of sailor’s bodies on the way. I saw someone running towards me. It was one of the boys the brat had intimidated earlier, a blond lad around thirteen. As soon as he saw me, he somehow increased his speed, reaching me. His face was flushed and tears of frustration were streaked on it. “Mr. Wizard, sir!” he shouted stopping in front of me. “They’re in the engine-room! We need reinforcements! Chief Musten sent me! We…” “All right, calm down, lad.” I told him. “I’m here now and more are coming.” “Good!’ he said. He pointed behind his back to the other end of the corridor, where a heavy metallic door was hanging askew from its hinges. “Let’s go, sir!” I stopped suddenly, while I was taking my first step to the engine-room. “YOU don’t go anywhere, lad! Stay here and when the rest of the relief party arrives, apprise them of the situation. And then, STAY here!” The lad stood up indignantly. “I can fight, sir!!” he said, with obviously injured pride. 'Yeah, right, because that’s just what I need, a kid getting killed fighting stupidly beside me.’, I thought. “Follow orders, sailor!!!” I barked at him. At once, the lad stood rigidly at attention. “Yes, sir, Mr. Wizard, SIR!” ‘Well, they have discipline on this ship.’ I thought. ‘Points for Captain Nemanya’. “Good!” I said. I moved beside the lad, ready to start running again, when an overwhelming smell of ozone filled the air. Simultaneously, a buzz was heard, an electric buzz. My hair stood on end – literarily – as the buzz increased in volume: zzzzzzZZZZZZZZZAAAAAARKT!!!!! A wave of purple energy spread outwards from the engine room. When the wave-front reached us, we where hurled backwards on the deck of the corridor. The young sailor lay there on his back stunned. I tried to sit up groggily. ‘ZZZZAAAARRKT?” I thought. ‘That’s MAJOR Bad News! Trust me. I’m a wizard. Comments