(tentative) Play It

"I'm keeping my raft, but none of that happens if we lose the outlaw search ship in a ranged battle," i point out to urge the group as we bump into my raft that was already bumping against the back of the other barge, telling me it was time to lower the front wall of the beta barge. "Positions, people, my gamer sense in tingling and it won't stop for the next hour, and no this is not a drill unless it turns out to be. Pick your posts and stay there, I'm going to pull my raft around to the front to sit between the barges whenever they're in position. I need to get my aura down to the size of my body so it's easier to manipulate," i add by way of an explanation, hoping to trigger people into noticing my aura before hopping up to the roof of my raft without charging my legs and then down the front.

Untying my raft from the back of the of the Scalesh barge to manipulate the current with my aura's tail for propulsion, i squeeze out from between the two barges and practice my control by flapping my wings to lighten the raft so that it sped along the current with more easy before turning around on my A-frame bed to flap in the other direction to fight the current and bring the raft to a faltering stop. There was an actual physical edge to the exhaustion of moving my magical body, but most of it was just tiring my mind with hard-fought focus in making my aura grip my raft almost in a push-up position while getting a work out against the current. When i could no longer hold out against the current, i simply hold onto the Scalesh barge with my tail and wait the last few minutes until the beta barge was pulling alongside the Scalesh barge and both vessels were rowing their oars once again for my place my raft in front of the too-tight scape in between to take up a third of our current straightaway from the center outward.

Most of my time was spent meditating on my aura once again, working at cramping the currents of energy into even smaller and tighter spaces as i did my best to make the body of my aura more conformed to my own, but after only managing to shrink it down to a few inches i finally gave up and freed energy from all around my auric body at a slow rate until my magical body was only a few inches bigger all around than my own with a functional EMF flowing outward for several feet around us. It was while trying to work this excess aura into a weapon or shield that the voices of both barges calling to one another brought me out of my zen trance and into reality to find that we had finally come across the enemy's search team. The enemy boat was not an exceptionally large or expensive looking fishing galley of weathered and faded purple fir at only forty feet long and with only two masts facing either direction in the middle, but the walls were bolstered like a Vikin vessel with large shields of iron or bronze along the top side and light copper plating along the sides and its ram was much larger than the last boat's.

The enemy vessel had been turning into our channel from the next straightaway that the Scalesh had earlier told us would lead to the gold mine from the silver mine, but now they were turning its long body to cover the middle of the canal in similar fashion to our formation to reveal actual ballista catapults along the sides with scorpios similar to our own at the fronts of the boat more for dealing with wildlife than enemy vessels. What i liked the most about their ship, though, was the twin black flags at the tops of their masts fluttering lazily in the light winds to reveal a large red fist. A dull greep copper or copper alloy anchor at the front and back ends of the galley dropped suddenly into the water even before i stepped out onto the lowered wall of my raft with a cane bearing a pale flag of animal skin, securing the galley's broadside position even though i could not see any activity about their upturned catapults.

I held up my flag anyway and waved it slowly back and forth while the sound of soft splashed behind my raft told me the others had gotten in the water until, after nearly a minute, an actual white flag rose up the frontal mast and i stopped waving my own flag to take up oars and row out with the current. There were no life boats or any kind of boarding craft about the galley, which they probably would not need with the proximity of the islands and for which i was grateful because if they had been in possession of smaller vessels they would never allowed my raft to bump its lowered wall into one of the copper plates of their hull to have instead met me out in the water. As it was, as soon as i was in position, a ladder was slowly lowered down to me while i could feel sudden visual pulses in the back of my head from Issa's psychic connection showing me her and the others under the galley swimming out to take up positions along the opposite side where hopefully nobody was watching.

The top half of a man in a chainmail shirt preceded by a fiery orange and yellow aura appeared over the side of the ship, stopping me just as i was starting to climb abord the boat by saying, "Before you come aboard, because of maritime ettiquette, i have to make sure you're aware of the vessel you are about to board. Do you recognize our flag?"

"Reminds me of Red Skull, so i guess you guys are Red Hand?" I call up to the first mate or captain of this vessel, having no clue about the naval practices of this world. "We're a little familiar with the territory, considering we were just leaving this damn place. I'll tell you all about it when i get up there, it's why we wanted a... parley? Was it? I'm not sure what to call it considering we're not necessarily fighting."

"Parley will do, climb aboard," he calls back, disappearing out of view on his ship as i test my somehow ever-present connection to Issa by letting her know i was about to climb.

At the top of the shields, i could clearly see into the ship and broadcast everything i saw down to Issa from the blue eyes of the ginger man who had greeted me to the ten low benches of Scalesh rowers on either side of the lower deck of the open galley. Stepping down onto the catwalk along the top of the wall supporting fifty shields on either side when there were only thirty humans in the entire craft with a total of three mages all gathered before me with varying shades fire for their auras that matched an obvious family resemblence of blue eyes and ginger hair, i sum up that the entire seizing of the boar would only last about a minute while taking out the family of mages would probably destroy the shit against such a unified front. My opening move had to kill at least two of these mages for the siege to take place without any flashy shows of magic.

"Well, first of all, let me just say thank you for taking the time to hear us out," i say, practicing the customer service voice and attitude that i used when first starting my business to pitch my security software to companies. "I bet you guys probably come across this a lot because of the etherfall in the area, but one the islands left behind just over a week ago before they came to a stop here wrecked our ship and left all of us stranded here on the outer islands. After all the survivors found each other again, we made camp at an island with iron way out at the point and set to work getting ready to head inland- it's just so dangerous and wild in these parts it's dumb not to walk around without at least one metal weapon, right?"

Pushing on without waiting for an answer to continue buying time, i say, "Very right, and my little bit of time out here in the wilds has taught me to carry several of them. Anyway, we've been on the water since sun-up and you're the first people we've seen, and since it is, well, you guys... we're still a couple of days out from where we need to be to link up with our trade group and report what had happened. Everything is gone, the metals and wines and stones and exotic fruits and everything is just floating somewhere or sitting at the bottom of the ocean about a day out from the point. Since the gods have smiled kindly enough on us to let us run into a rather agreeable finger of the Red Hand, i don't mind telling you where the ship sank as a show of good faith in the hopes you would find some way of allowing my friends and i safe passage through your otherwise hostile territories."

Every moment spent talking was a moment spent relaying information back and forth with thr group through Issa, watching them silently scale the hull of the ship through my mind's eye while Issa positioned the team with Hitome and Harold both in line with my team of mages. All they needed was a signal. The mention of the sunken ship and the possible location of its cargo got the attention of the galley's entire crew, a varitable treasure of mentioned metals and stones, but the leader of the mages who had greeted me earlier seemed to be a by-the-book sort of fellow.

"We can allow you and your group to pass unhindered," he says with a simple shrug before, "but passing through the territories is up to the rest of the Hand. We have somewhat urgent business in the outer isles, but i can give you an allied flag to put on one of your... boats... that will let you dock at our fort a couple of hours from here. Just turn down between the two clay islands..." he was saying while turning to walk off toward the nearby front mast, presenting me with the perfect opportunity to charge my body for a feral forward lunge at the two remaining mages who only had enough time for their eyes to widen with shock before i was shoving the clawed fingers of my gauntlets into and then out of the back of theour throats.

Hitome was over the shields before their blood had even hit the deck, planting her yari into the empty catwalk on her side of the boat and vaulting almost clear across the galley as the others climbed up behind her wild flip that carried her yari into a savage overhead chop down on the final mage's neck and shoulders while he was turning around to witness his brothers collapsing, bubbles from gurgling blooming out of holes in their throats, that tore through the chest of his chainmail shirt before stopping around his stomach. With the deaths of the mages, i no longer focused so much on stealth but instead turned toward the nearest outlaw and whipped out a substantiated wing to clothesline them across the chest and throw them down into the lower decks where the bonded shamans were magically freeing the shackled feet of the galley's rowers. My tail reacted of its own accord to an outlaw woman jumping down at me from the catwalk i had tackled the mage brothers from, coling and then snapping out like a whip to ensnare their body in blades of compressed air that tore her body in two with a quick twist.

Many of the galley's gobins were free and swarming their nearest oppressors even as i drew Shitome in mid-lunge down the length of the ship, slashing an outlaw across the middle of their fur-wrapped back in midair as they jumped down into the galleys toward Issa and her mother with a raised mace before i landed at the far end of the galley only to turn around and spread my wings as i leap down the length of the catwalk and glide swiftly over the heads ot a group of outlaws trying to fire arrows across the boat at where Angle was felling their comrades below with guided throwing knives. Two of the four archers were gone to deep gashes about the tops of their helmeted heads from charged strikes of Shitome, and another aboutface with my wings flung aside a pair of freshly loosed arrows before landing in a low crouch right in front of an archer who easily falls to my rising slash across their body after vainly trying to ward off my attack with a thin yew shortbow that fell to the lower leck in two pieces of cleanly cut wood held together by untwisting sinews. I did not even get to the final archer and remaining outlaw on the boat before a freed goblin below gored through through the belly with a broken oar handle, stealing the final kill and ending the fight with a quiet but no less victorious round of cheers and hisses from around the newly acquired galley.

Drawing on some copper from the hull of the ship to color an Ignition spell gree, i shoot a literal greenlight about ten feet up in the air to signatl the barges to come in while the shamans confer with two new females to explain the situation to them and the males curiously study the other humans who now all wore masks like my own gifted to them by their shamans- even Hitome's beautiful face was hidden for the stealthy occasion despite her brightly gleaming bronze crown atop the hood of her coat. Despite having been killed in their gear, many of the bodies still more workable leather wrappings and leather armor parts that gear could easily be made for the new Scalesh who were quickly ordered into work looting bodies and presenting the contents of the ship by the shamans only minutes after having been freed from the service of the outlaws. The actually contents of the ship were not much, just some food and alcohol for a couple of days on top of simplistic spare weapons and ship-tending equipment, but much of this was still stuff that could be used for the Scalesh while the newly freed goblins were given unrestricted access to the galley's food supply until the barges finally arrived from over a quarter of a mile away and it became time to assimilate the ship.

There was not much that we could do besides unload the galley because we needed to look unchanged- which included steaming the blood from the decks- to use to ship to get into the enemy port, but that did not stop Arielle and the girls from running around the inside of the galley and checking out the ship that had somehow fallen into my ownership with the death of its previous owners. If the ship actually survived, i would probably just leave it to the Scalesh for future fishing or naval purposes, but for now it was going to be manned by the same Scalesh crew who seemed to volunteer to help me bring the ship to port and provide support from its small catapults and giant crossbows. Despite having to hold myself back for the sake of the goblins who were coming with me under Issa's leadership now that we had two new shamans to bond and replace her in the fort operations, i was more than happy to not be facing such a large-scale opponent as to gold mine fort all by myself until the reinforcement teams landed about the mine and headed out to wherever i was dealing with the bosses.

It was fully noon before the monochromatic mountain of our destination island could be seen in the distance over the tops of other island formations and forestry, but all we could really see was it brought, gently beveled top that looked to be shorn away on one side to create a shadowed alcove in the rock that would have been the perfect place for the others to wait until their phase of the attack. As it was, we had to fork off from the straightaway for two islands out before continuing along with the current once more to take us just passed and around the gold mine island where we could park the rafts. Many of the other Scalesh seemed envious of my crew who were going to be the honorable front lines, but i could tell that my crew relished their newfound freedom enough to prefer the other side's stealth role over the obvious targets they would be wearing until the pincer that would offer us some relief.

To the affect of preserving the galley and its crew, many of my original prize quartz and citrines from my starting island were placed about the ship under Arielle's careful guidance and imbued with power with the will and intent to target enemy magics with Sonic and Plasma buffers constantly charged by the shamans as we coasted along the current and used what little time we had left to prepare. The mundane munitions of the ship were bolstered with crystalline spears of Ignition and Plasma for the scorpios and cannonballs of sulfur to place in the crossbow-like ballista catapults, and the original rowers' benches were broken down and distributed discreetly about the inner hull of the ship for a stronger integrity to hold up against any mundane or magical attacks that make it through our defenses.

Waiting on the others to make their way across the island we were parked behind was maddening, almost two hours spent watching the sun sink to a position just two fingers above the top of the volcano before a tiny little pink flare shot out behind the mountain from somewhere near the top and told me that it was time to push the galley back out into the channel. The sun looked as though it were sitting on the rim of the volcanoe by the time we fought the current with magic and goblin muscle before we could safely turn back onto the waterway leading to the outlaw fort, slowly sinking into its invisible depths as i watched my minimap for the manmade inlet the Scalesh of the galley said they had been a part of digging when the mine was originally prospected. The island itself had tall beaches hemmed in by vine-filled jungle forestry and relatively little breakage from the mountain itself within the island, but even from the shore following along one inward curving side u could see only a few hundred feet of this forestry before the map became just dirt and sparse young canes from the clearing of land required to build the fort.

The inlet was something of a mushroom with a fifty-yard opening that fed into several football fields worth of small lake or lagoon in a semicircle from the entrance to the large marina that sported several long piers at which were docked small war vessels that were large enough to look troublesome in the waterways and shorter docks at which were moored the smaller fishing vessels that had been commandeered and outfitted for outlaw purposes. All but two ships in the marina were inactive and these were small galleys like my own that seemed to be patrolling a large circle around the middle of the lagoon until my galley pulled into the entrance and the Scalesh rowed us abreast across the middle of the entryway to drop anchor. Our plans had not been made with active senty ships in mind, we had figured they would be so sure of their strength that there would only be sentries on land around the fort less than half of a mile away, but apparently there was enough cause for paranoia among the smugglers that they either always had active boats in the marina or were anticipating trouble after missing their shipment crew to the silver mines and on either ship were what seemed to be a common strategic theme of three magical auras only a little smaller than my own.

"You take left, we take right?" Issa asks from her seat behind me at the bow of the galley, watching through my eyes as the enemy boats close in on our position. "We ram, board, then take right while you free people of left. Take port both sides, no time talk. Go," she adds before loudly hissing some form of warcry to her people who begin turning the ship back toward Issa's target and rowing with renewed vigor.

Hopping up onto the arm of the ram replacing the galley's figurehead, i take a single displaced step forward and flap my aura in the same motion that i find myself propelled from the galley high into the air where i glide downward hard and fast right for my target ship only to particulate my person and pass harmlessly through after taking a headcount of twelve overall smugglers with the same rowing crew of twenty Scalesh as my own galley. Passing through the muddy floor of the goblin-made marina and rematerializing myself at an angle, i shoot up through the water with so much energy that the marina geysers up beneath me and suddenly whirls with displaced mass like the pools of the storm that had shipwrecked me at the start of the game. Diving back down through the thick downpour of my wake. I land unseen in the flooding galley that was tipping over on its side in the whirl and reach out with my physical and auric hand to close my fingers easily around and through the neck of an unaware mundane outlaw even as one of the mages tried to fire a wave of Plasma at me that only became isolated arcs of energy in the highly conductive water falling through the air.

The mage went down with a scream as i drew Hanran for the first time up from over my shoulder and straight down into the mage's upturned face with charged speed so fast that the forming icicle in their hand simply thaws and drops to the floor alongside their body. The ship was already righting itself as the last of my spouted water clears from the air, unsettling the balance of a sword-and-shield wielding outlaw trying to charge me from the side so that he stumbles and falls to the middle deck around the rowing gallery where he slides to my feet. I did not even kill him as a mage on the other side of the ship fired off several balls of fire at once at me, simply displaced myself backwards and clear of the small explosions that send the fallen man tumbling into the rowing gallery where the Scalesh were already rising up against their soggy masters.

Closing one wing in front of me and turning like the kinetic whirl of Harold's psychic Skin to block and redirect the flow of crackling green lightning the third mage in the group throw at me, i come all of the way back around before swinging my wing wide open to fling what remained of the electricity at the fire mage who is caught unaware in the back while fending off a spear thrusting Scalesh rower. Displacing myself to the far end of the boat right passed the final mage with a kinetic burst upon my landing that sends them flying into the air out over the rowing gallery, i charged jump right out after them and glide by just above their falling body to scythe Hanran cleanly through the backs of their knees. Flapping hard with my better coordinated, smaller wings to bring myself several feet higher, i lean up and flap again into a wide, looping backflip the brings me around behind the boat where i grip the stern with both my hands and my aura and begin magically pushing the boat across the marina to where my galley and Issa were locked in battle with their ram smashed into the side of the prow of the enemy vessel where she held of enemy boarders with bolts of plasma and fire from her crossbow as the males og the galley simply jumped onto the other ship to cling to its wood between copper plates with their claws and easily board the enemy vessel.

Letting go to let my new galley coast into the broad side of the enemy galley, i use a thermal-kinetic burst to propel myself out over my current galley before diving down onto the back of a mage near the front of the remaining enemy vessel whose head is crushed with my landing. Even as i lunged forward to cut off the press of people trying to board my galley by its ram, i could hear the shouting of men on the shore and see the colored flames of magic flares being shot into the air too little too late to warn the fort of the attack and call reinforcements out to the marina, but that only presented us with the perfect timing to start launching our own signals. "ISSA!" I shout with magic into a man's face after turning aside from a thrust of his sword, scrambling his skull with soundwaves. "Fire the catapults on the fort! The galleys are ours!"

Within moments there was a single sphere of destabilizing sulfur flung through an awaiting Ignition so that its powdering body and gasses begin burning and spiraling into self-propulsion high up into the air before several more soon followed while i thrust Hanran down into a man's back as they crossed swords with a limping Scalesh warrior. Displacing myself from the siezed galleys and to my own vessel, i magically deconstruct and then restation the far side of the ship's ballistae to face the fort before loading and firing a full volley of burning sulfuric cannonballs and gliding to Issa's side as she worked with new shamans to teach them how to use the ballistae and their special munitions. Lightly mussing the young goblin's spiking hair, i say, "Get the galleys mobile and in position together on the other side of the marina closer to the fort where the regular munitions can reach. There are two big auras on their way and there's still no sign of the boss, i have to go make an example of the small fry," i add, procuring my vial of Perpetual Elixir from my coat tossing it back before taking to the air wwith several kinetic bursts.

The energy from the elixir was not just magic but physical as well, strengthening my grip on Hanran's bronze hilt as i glided out over the marina toward the shore where outlaws were trying to get to the other ships until a massive, thermal Auric Scythe from Hanran's curving blade sliced through the piers and docks over the land safely away from the boats before exploding outward in clouds of molten sand and steam that cover my landing. A following Plasma Scythe spread out for a hundred yards across most of the beach, destabilizing projectile spells with electro-magical pulses that fragment and degrade its body until the Scythe can no longer hold itself and explodes in another smokescreen of electrified sand and burning grasses. The smokescreen held for over ten seconds, allowing me to displace myself about the beach cutting through mundane outlaws too busy trying to climb onto the disconnected docks and piers to notice my blurred passing before a mist of their blood follows them to the ground or water below.

When the electro-magical field was finally faded with the settling of quartzite particles allowing the channeling of energy in the air, the beach on my side was splashed as wildly with crimson as my armor that still gleamed in the waning light of the sun that had nearly set behind the volcano by now, but on the incline of the beach leading into the leveled forestry surrounding the fort was an array twenty-one magical auras grouped together in threes and charping up massive gathering of energy between themselves. "Shit," is all i had time to swear with as i snapped my wings closed over my body and dropped into a kneel to fend off seven sustained beams of Plasma equal in power to the lightning blasts of the young water dragon we had fought what felt like forever ago. My wings held up for the most part, constantly reparing themselves even as the plasma distorted the shape of my aura and sizzled its surface from every frontal angle, but even with the Perpetual Elixir there were arcs of lightning that would made it through a gap in the psychic membranes of my wings before they closed over and would crackle into the other parts of my auric armor who held up with no problem at all behind the shields of my wings.

Several of the spine-like ribs of my wings were broken at angles or completely off while the thinner membrane between and around the bones was quick to regenerate as the grouped mages ran out of energy to fuel their spells, but the rest of my auric and physical bodies were unphased as the air cleared of energy despite my being unable to do more than charge my body into a displaced lunge up the beach with magic after sustaining such intense, paralyzing attacks. The mage straight ahead of me was the unluckiest because i did not even cut or stab him but simply slammed bodily into him like a human cannonball to send them flying wildly through the air with a flicker and winking out of their aura before turning on the next closest person with Hanran as they watched their comrade fly away. I was stopped short of running a third mage through the ribs by one of the officer auras stepping in with a mighty claymore slamming down on the back of my sword with a kinetic burst that sent all of us in the area flying in different directions, but after a quick break down and solidification facing the direction of the officer it was little more than a single flap of my repaired wings to dive across the distance and cross sword with them from above.

A thermal burst from my sword stripped the area around us of oxygen and dropped the winded officer to a kneel as my feet finally touched the ground, allowing me to lightly displace myself forward to shove the officer down on his back under the flat of his immense sword struggling to push up against my charged body. I could feel ribs cracking in his chest when a bolt of lightning struck me from the side, rending apart one of the plates of my high-waisted greaves as i sent me somesaulting through the air to land at the feet of a charged group of maged who immediately unleashed the stored electrical attack into the dispersing cloud my body and belongings started turning into and seeping into the ground as the scales of my auric jerkin began boiling away under the onslaught of combined lightnings. Rematerializing from several feet below to shoot up into the air from the loose ground that craters out from around my passage and unseats the group of mages holding onto one another to channel their energy, i dive back down with a massive Plasma Burst that sizzles away most of their auras and actually manages to fry one before the other officer suddenly appears at my side with a spinning staff that passes easily through my aura to connect with the patterned studs and bands over my ribs hard enough to knock straight into the ground.

Rolling away too slow to avoid the end of the officer's staff slamming down across the back of one shoulder with the same unsettling force, i feel my rotator cuff crack and my arm give out from under me even as i use a burst of kinetic energy to jump to my feet and send the second officer rolling away. My relief was short-lived, however, even as sulfuric spears and spheres rained down on the fort and the beach around me targeting the mages furthest away because the officer was on top of me again in an instant with a flurry of thrusts from his staff that kept me backpedaling to avoid further injury. The main boss had yet to show up and i was already getting beat the stuffing out of as a sudden spin and flick of his staff caught me across the side of my knee at the same time that another group lightning attack struck me full force from behind and began eating away at the bases of my wings while shoving my forward across the beach.

The attack did not last long, though, only managing to sheer away one of my wings and the back shoulder of my armor before lightly charring the weaving of my magic-retardant coat, but the second officer was already on his way with several charged lunges only to come within point-blank range of a dual Plasma Pulse from both my aura and the garnet about my neck that sends them tumbling aside into the sand. Mixed colored light like the mixed lightning attacks of my enemies off to my right drove me to dive forward and roll out of the way of an incoming attack just in time to avoid having my regenerating wing removed all over again. Ending the roll on my feet and charged leaping high into the air to drop down toward the officer who was only just picking themselves up, i just manage to slice into the fur-wrapping on top of their shoulder when another group attack flashed from dead ahead and looses a short spurt of lightning that striked both the officer and I just before the group of mages was swallows up and a large pink fireball of sulfur.

The first officer was miraculously back on the feet, launching scything waves of actual lightning through the air at me as the other dazed officer and i landed near where the lightning had struck us, but none of them made contact as my tail grabbed the other officer by their dwindling aura and held them up like a living shield to diffuse the electricity with his aura until it was gone and the last few waves cut steadily away at their body. Launching the corpse at their would-be savior with a thermal-kinetic burst of energy, i displace myself into the air right behind it and hold out my sword as the wounded office stumbles out of the way of the body and leaves themselves open for my sword to pass cleanly through their neck. Landing ahead of the thrown corpse after gliding onward with newly repaired wings, i turn into another group lightning attack with on closing wing and send the sustained arcs of electricity flying out in all directions from the redirected attack that passes over the group it originated from sizzles away what little remained of their aura so that they could not defend themselves from a follow-up Scythe of psychic energy.

Clutching my broken arm tiredly to my body to alleviate some of the strain on my shoulder, i take the time to survey the newly emptied beach as the last of the artillery attacks on the beach hit and cleared away and just start to wonder where the main boss was when several voices from within the for suddenly cry out my name with magical amplification. A charged displacement into thermal-kinetic bursts under my flapping wings brings me several hundred feet straight up into the air, half of the height of the granit mountain containing the gold mine, and from up here i could easily see my target in the form of a massive black and silver and crimson EMF condensed into the a defensive orb over sixty feet in radius was in the middle of the ruined fort surrounded by dozens of black and silver and crimson life signatures fighting against the auras of my friends and their shamans as well as dozens of Scalesh warriors fighting in cavernous entrance to the gold mines at the base of the mountain in the back of the fort. "CLEAR THE LZ," i roar ahead of me through my aura, unleashing sound waves so powerful they distorted the air as the traveled down to the ground ahead of my diving body to remove wind resistance as i gathered my falling kinetic energy under my wings.

The ground rose up to greet me far faster than i had intended, but the release of my falling energy from my flapping wings from directly overhead the boss's aura was enough to crater the ground away from me as i drifted lightly to the ground among the perishing signatures of rotting corpses and collapsing skeletones that had been pushing my comrades retreating into the mines for protection from my entrance. The boss appeared to be unphased, standing with no trouble at all at the bottom of my crater with hellish black flames boiling about his hands as he prepared to retaliate, but a brief flap of my wings into a telekinetic burst send rubble and debris from the fort and the crater flying through the air between us in time to take the brunt of a massive wave of liquid-like black flames that boiled away the stone before it ever reached the ground. A bit of black fire splashed across my wing, boiling like acid as it ate through the membrane while the membrane spent itself extinguishing the flame until it all reached a nearby rib and died away from lack of energy.

"Zai!" Harold calls out from the mine as he and the others begin returning to the battleground. "Don't get within reach of him! If he expands his aura around yours, it's just as bad as the fire, we need to take him out from a distance!"

He'll expand his aura as an AOE attack? I ask myself as the ground around the necromancer begins boiling with black fire, possibly the strongest attack this NPC knew at the moment and not an actual fire. Auric manipulation of that sort is pretty taxing, even for me... can he dodge a physical strike while manipulating the entirety of his EMF? I wonder as the others and their shamans join me at the rim of the crater only a few yards away from the mine entrance and start projecting their auras into a psychic wall as the necromancer below unleashes a geyser of their corrosive magic from the ground around their body.

Abandoning the defensive line by stepping down over the edge of the crater, i adhere to the sandy granite wall of the crater with my auric boots and take several steps down until i am below the projection of their magic and can displace myself across the crater to land at the edge of their aura where i unleash a quick Plasma Scythe through their spell to cut off and diffuse the flow of his energy and get his attention before rapidly slashing and whirling about to unleash a constant barrage of aura-sizzling Scythes. The necromancer barely seemed to notice my attacks except to turn and look at me in an almost sad sort of way before the briefest flicker of their aura gave away the moment of its sudden expansion to fill the entire crater. Reflexes sent me in motion the moment i saw the flicker, but as soon as i was enveloped in their aura my own EMF armor and body parts begin sizzling and boiling away faster than it had under the group lightning attacks on the beach as i sailed through the air toward the necromancer and slashed blindly through the darkness of their aura.

My blade made contact with something and slide over it as i passed, having enough of an effect to flicker the necromancer's aura for a moment so that i could see them staggering to the side beforepassing out of their suddenly shrinking auric field. My own aura was completely gone and my dragonskin coat was eaten away in places that looked like melted plastic, some of the metal plates covering my armor were warped and rusted- one of the plates of my shines was falling away completely- and every inch of skin on my body burned as if the outer layers had been peeled away just enough to react to liquified salt being poured all over me, but i was well enough to keep my one-handed grasp on Hanran and turn into a sonic leap back across the crater just as the next expansion starts and only spend two full seconds passing through his aura this time before my sword met body and ended the expansion while the others pressed into the crater with Plasma and fire. Two seconds had been too many, however, without any time for my aura to actually recharge and relying solely on my coat to protect most of my body from their EMF that had melted most of its outer weaving together this time on top of stripping most of the skin from my body and melting one eye permanently closed.

Life sucked on levels that made me honestly consider having my pain sensory reduced as i struggled to pick myself up from my hands and knees in the crater, flooding my body with healing psychic energy while focusing on my skin until the ninety perect of my pain was gone and all that was left was the depressing agony of my face within my mask. The others were doing a wonderful job pushing the wounded necromancer back to the far side of the crater with alternating Plasma and Sonic attacks that kept the air too magically charged for the expansion of his aura while evading individual attacks from somebody's crossbow or dragon spine, but even mostly physically healed i was still weak and drained magically as my aura stuttered and flickered even as it regenerated as if i was suffering from some kind of lag. Wishing i could take the time to turn on my HUD and see if i had any negative duration buffs from the necromancer's EMF, i stumble forward behind the front line while drawing a dragon spine in my right hand not suffering from a broken shoulder of some sort and weakly flick that wrist to send an bolt of lightning arcing over the heads of my companions and down on the slowly shrinking aura of the necromancer that had dwindled down to fifty feet.

Everybody seemed to choose then to unleash a uniform attack of their own in which eight crossbows unleashed blooming beams of Plasma and eleven dragon spine wands unleashed blinding blue flashes of lightning upon the outlaw boss, dropping their aura down to forty feet in the space of a single second and forcing the enemy into a full-on retreat into the air. "Don't let them get to the beach!" Arielle screams in my face, suddenly appearing in front of me to grab me by the front of my armor, turn, and hurl me like a spear high into the air after to necromancer where my wings opened of their own accord to catch my wind resistance and angle me into a sharper rise well over the enemy who was already flying in a straight line for the marina.

Arielle should have been more than aware of my nearly incapacitated status before she threw me at the outlaw boss, so i could hope she did not really expect all that much when all i could manage was to dive bodily into them from above and send us both crashing into the sand a few hundred yards short of the marina. Even though they had eaten the landing with broken legs and ribs, blood staining the sand around their already saturated silken robes, the necromancer was somehow mindlessly crawling off toward the marina while sand began coalescing around his body in the same way that i formed golem shells during the fight with the baby dragon. Fusing sand to my aura too late to stop the necromancer from once again taking to the air with batwings blood and sand spreading from under their arms, i climb on partial legs to propel myself forward with a displacement and up into the air from beneath the necromancer several dozen yard away with an angling of my wings.

Sand was already filling the necromancer's wounds when we crashed back down to the ground again with a flickering of my aura that spilled my sandy body on the beach, covering his body like an armor and working his legs to tirelessly kick me off of them just as i had forced my quadrapalegic body to function against the dragon. Clawing into the sandy shell of on of their legs and rolling bodily away, i charge my arms enough to lift them into the air and jackknife my body into the roll to send them tumbling through the air several yards back toward the fort only for their magically manipulated body to stand up and run right by me. The explosion of a sulfur bomb on the beach ten yards ahead of the outlaw sent them sliding backward through the sand as i developed a new body, followed by a second catapult from my galley nearby that landed further up the beach as if anticipating the original to miss or herd the target, but the necromancer was already on their feet and taking to the air with another pair of batwings to avoid the arcing motar-like rounds.

I could not get to them in time again, only manage to crash them into the gory marina and release a quick EMP that sheds our sandy exoskeletons in time for both of our swinging fists to connect with raw face with enough force to send us skidding away from each other through the sand. Even before i pushed my upper body up off of the ground only to collapse weakly in the sand again i knew i was too late, the ground around us was roiling and boiling as if on fire from deep underground with the necromancer only ten yards away at the epicenter of quickly growing tremors that continued to keep me trapped on the ground. I could only watch as black fire spilled up from beneath the mage's still body to stretch out over the beach and begin breaking down all of the bloody sand bodies within reach while simply parting around my still living body before receding in on the growing amorphous blob of black energy that had become the outlaw.

Arielle was there beside me, then, scooping me up in her arms before sprinting down the beach in ten-yard strides as if she were gliding over the sand even with my weight, and all the while mumbling about telling me not to let them get to the beach. From where i lay across her arms just barely able to hold my head up, i could understand why allowing the necromancer to reach the beach full of dead bodies was a bad idea when one seven-foot long arm of exposed, twisted black muscle and bone reaches out a clawed hand big enough to close around my body from the the blackness. I almost told her 'I tried' but the way the words seemed to ring about my head did not sit right, something about breathing their sounds into existence made me feel like i was giving up on the fight, and suddenly i was very angry.

"Either heal me or get out of the way," i growled instead through clenches teeth, unceremoniously rolling out of there arms and underneath them as they easily stepped over my falling form in mid-stride. Using my auric arm to snatch my physical arm into position and then magically compress the bones into place after rolling to an uncontrolled stop, i flood the limb with magic that fuses my bones slowly back together as more of the abomination in the marina appears even as scorpio spears strike and explode in bursts of fire and Plasma around the monster.

"The others are on their way," Arielle says after coming back for me, trying to pick me up again until hi push her aside with my newly healed arm. "We need to regroup, Zai! Stop being so damned stubborn! Issa and the Scalesh galleys on the water can keep it busy, then we can come around from behind and hit it with a group attack!"

"It! Has! WINGS!" I roar in response, opening my own auric wings a full second after a pair a gory wings reach up from the top of the blackness and spread slowly outward from a developing body of the darkness begin surrounding in bone and muscle. "Issa's is the only galley firing, that thing will kill her and everyone on that ship with a flick of the wrist, Arielle! I'm not going to sacrifice her just to buy time," i add in a savagely angry hiss before turning and taking off into the air. Gathering my kinetic energy as as i fly toward the horned and winged humanoid creature of dripping exposed tissues, i store the momentum along the edge of Hanran's blade to charge a Psionic Scythe as the second stage necromancer gathers up a handful of logs from the docks i had wrecked and lob them through the air at the galley dropping sulfur bombs all around the twenty-foot tall boss..

The creature's arm was still extended from the throw when i arrived, diving into a wild flip copying Hitome's earlier vaulting technique that chops Hanran down into the creature'se bone ensnared bicep as deep as the blade was long before unleashing my stored kinetic energy through the wound and straight to the ground below so that the boss's arm falls limply to the ground as thrown logs splinter against the armor plated hull of Issa's galley off to the side of the others where all of its weapons were being manned and supported by Scalesh. A roar so powerful that it dimmed my vision and sent me spiraling to the ground with jarring soundwaves split the air as the monster reeled backward from the loss of its limb, putting to shame the screeching roars of the water dragon like the yipping of a small dog in comparison to the howl of a wolf. Following the exclamation of surprise and pain was a broad sweep of one thirty-foot wing that send several feet of sand and I flying out over the water where i actually skip twice like a rock on my back and then front before sliding sideways into the water out by the entrace to the marina, only barely managing to float back up to the surface as the air bubbles from my splash become ensnared in my auric wings to help me drift out to the sandbar separating the marina lake from the island channel.

Even though my aura was still at full charge and most of my body had been cushioned from the wing sweep by sand, i was now physically exhausted and fatigued to the point where turning my head to look across the marina made my neck feel as though it were about to snap out of place, but just looking at the second stage boss picking up their severed arm to hold back in place until its limp hand clenches into a fist was enough for me to start drawing out the quartz sediments in the sand into my aura. Taking to the air a few moments later with a new crystalline body as a volley of massive fireballs flies at the boss from up the beach where the beta team had finally gathered and were forming a offenseive line as massive clumps of sand and wood landing in the water around my galley send it spinning out into the marina. Gathering my kinetic energy into my sword all over again from over twice the distance away as before, i channel fire and Plasma and static friction from my own body into the sword as well to create a combination of steadily charging magics until i finally dive down on the boss from behind and slash a dazzling array of energies through its midriff and into the ground in front of the creature to kick up a massive storm of fire and lightning and sand that shrouds us as i land atop the now crawling boss and wildly slash one Scythe after another into its back.

The beast easily flung my crystalline body inland and away from the marina, but even as i particulated and reformed to dive back down on the boss a combination volley of sulfur bombs arcing through the air and fireballs from the beta team strike home in the ground between both halves of the boss and send them sprawling away from each other before it can put tiself back together. The fetid creature's body was beginning to catch fire in places, its entirely lower body being consumed in pink flames while its still moving upper body put up resistance as it roared a directed sound attack at my friends up the beach that prematurely detonated their next volley and washed it backward over them before i could land with solid smash of the sound barrier on the back of the creature's neck. Its head torqued up and to the side from the snapping of its neck and spine, silencing the beast's powerful roar, but now it could see where it was reaching to snatch me from its back and slam my crystalline body down into the beach as a volley of crystalline spears found their mark in the boss's armpit as it raised my fracturing body up for a second smash and ripped its arm free of its body.

The falling arm smashed me into the ground regardless of losing the brunt of its strength, crushing my quartz wings beneath me, but i no longer needed them as i spread what was left of the broken-glass-sharp shards through the fingers around my body to free myself and turn to face the boss in time for it to recieve a faceful of fire and Plasma from the beta now closing the distance in a crazed charge led by Harold and Hitome. Displacing myself forward into a kinetic thrust of Hanran into the side of the boss's neck that projects a spear of gory energy out of the other side with the opening of its abdomen is filled with a volley of spears from behind and its silently roaring mouth its filled with a combination of explosive magive, i rip my sword and its projection of energy up out of the back of the boss's broken neck as its insides are stren about and pieces of its jaws going flying in all directions. I tried to think of something cool to say as i raised my magically extended katana high overhead, but i was just too tired to care about my reputation as i chopped the sword down into the remaining connection of its throat and separate the head from the body that now lies still even as the head tried to jackknife and flop with what little muscle tissue it had remaining.

"Just die..." i groan tiredly as my crystalline exoskeleton begins cracking apart and falling away, pushing myself to walk forward after the wobbling head rolling at an angle toward the water like a football that would eventually circle back on itself. "You did your best... you tried to stop us..." i say in a pitying sort of consoling way, actually feeling bad for the abomination as i wiped Hanran clean on my sleathe before tiredly sheathing my katana over my shoulder. Drawing Shitome to fill its crystalline body with soundwaves from my voice, i say, "But, it's over," and slide the resonating sword easily through layers of muscle and bones at the base of its skull, shattering the entire bone of the back of its head while pulverizing muscle tissue with reverberating soundwaves to expose to battered and broken body of the necromancer curled up and rocking back and forth within the cranial cavity in lieu of a some kind of demonic brain matter.

I honestly could not bring myself to look at the body that displayed the horrifically broken mind of the outlaw boss as i filled the SUV sized cranial cavity with compressed oxygen and hydrogen gasses in predesignated bonds to keep water from forming, so instead i charged my arm with magic to roll the head over on the opening before snapping my fingers to cast Ignition which trails along a thin stream of aura before catching the gasses inside the skull alight with a roar of towering flames boiling out of the creature's eyes sockets as the galley beached nearby and the others gathered around. When the fire was out, the head lay completely still, the charred inside of the head and the necromancer's body inside now smoking thickly from the eyes of the bested beast. Unlike our usual victories, there was no celebration, no eruption of cheers before breaking into some stock of food, no short relivings of our prouder moments, just a miserable exhaustion and emptiness that crept out over my body like that shadow of the volcano that had long since swept over the island.

The others were already talking about going to back to the island behind the mountain to collect our rafts while Scalesh handled combing the fort for anything of use that was still usable, but all i could do was lie tiredly in the sand and pull my mask from my head to stare up at the early evening sky about our shadowed island through one working eye. Issa was by my side before any of the others even came around the head of the beast to check on me, battered and worn in her own right with tears about her woven and wired armor as well as several breaks in the scales of her wide face that were only a little bit bloody, but still it seemed that her first priority before healing herself was to come cradle my head in her lap and use my garnet necklace to open my eye back up before skimming over the rest of my body to heal bruised bones and cracked ribs i had not even been aware of. Reaching up to pat Issa's head as was my teasing pleasure while my vision slowly dimmed around the edges, i find myself speaking through a yawn as i say, "We did it, Iss... we started a war," before passing out entirely.