End Online: Volume 5 (8 page)

‘Forty percent of its health taken off by a single cannonball!’
 I think, shocked at how formidable this vessel’s cannons
are.

Multiple explosions take place as more cannonballs find their
targets, and one of the tentacles is killed and falls back beneath the surface
of the water. The new assault seems to cause all the tentacles to enter a
berserker state. The eleven remaining tentacles writhe ferociously and lash at
us and the ship with a whip-like, frenzied attack.

We no longer have the option of attacking, so we focus our
attention on evading and defending. Fen and I get off the easiest as our speed
completely outclasses the speed of the attacks but still are buffeted by the
shockwaves and splintered wood flying everywhere. Sir Laurence dodges one and
then raises his shield and deploys his sacred art to defend against another
two. The shield barrier barely withstands the collision of the first tentacle,
and the second shatters it and flattens Prince Charming onto the deck.

The damage is quite severe, taking off a third of his health and
inflicting him with a sinister poison status, but I struggle not to laugh at
the pitiful sight of him going face first into the deck. I will always remember
the moment when the most prideful person I know fell flat on his face.

Mikhail the Stalwart’s group is having a harder time of it with
one of the members dying. Moonkite is at low health, struggling to consume an
antidote to remove the tentacles’ poison before death claims her. I know how
the player’s body becomes weary and eventually unable to move the lower that
player’s health falls. Seeing Moonkite successfully consume the antidote at
five percent health remaining, I can only sigh in admiration at how much
willpower it must have taken.

Pulling Fen close to me with one arm around her waist, I take a
defensive position next to Sir Laurence with Mason and Matrix joining. The
ship’s deck is in tatters with holes everywhere the eye looks, leaving me a
little worried about the floor collapsing. One of the cast iron railings is
also warped and bent inwards from the tentacles pushing in on it as it attacks.

Sir Laurence summons his sacred art to shield us while Fen
follows my commands and erects a multi-layer ice barrier to cover and reinforce
the prince’s shield. The ice shields block off all light from the outside
lanterns, but Sir Laurence’s sacred art emanates a soft light that prevents our
surroundings from becoming pitch black. We all take out our healing items and
restore as much health as we can in the short time frame we have.

I bring out a few ‘Orange Medicinal Herbs’, consuming half
immediately to begin my health regeneration. According to some off-the-cuff
calculations, my class skill will enhance the effects of the herbs enough that
I should recover up to about eighty percent health. I try to disentangle from
Fen to feed her the rest, but her hand grabs my wrist to stop me.

‘I haven’t had to do this in a long time. Ugh, it is so
embarrassing! Who made the game require the person with the skill to feed the
other in order for the effects to work?’

I pull Fen closer against me and tighten my hold with the arm
she has entrapped. She yelps in surprise at my actions, which I use as an
opportunity to shove herbs into her open mouth and close her jaw with my now
free hand on her chin.

She grins slyly at my forcefulness and happily swallows the
herbs. It isn’t that I’m surprised by her behavior, but I’m still irritated by
it in the heat of the moment.

The others in the shield formation look everywhere but at us.
The only exception is Mason, who is staring inquisitively with a single raised
eyebrow.

‘Stop staring! This is embarrassing enough that it happened. I
don’t need you judging me too!’My shame magnifies while I imagine Mason slyly
whispering about this to the other team members.

“Oh, will you look at that. My class skill just levelled up to
26,” I say in an obvious attempt to change the subject but Mason’s expression
doesn’t even twitch.

A violent tremor assaults us and I hear several layers of our
ice shield shatter. Bare moments pass before another quake strikes and the
remaining ice shields are crushed to dust. The tentacle hits the floating sigil
barrier with it’s remaining force, but not hard enough to do any damage.

The ship vibrates beneath my feet and the sound of cannon fire
booms again. Most of the tentacles are already at low health and immediately
die from the assault, while the remaining few reel back from the attack.

“Sir Laurence, drop the shield now!” I shout, and as soon as the
protective sacred art dissipates into fading stars of light, I launch two ‘Dire
Flame’ fireballs, one at each tentacle.

Just like with the cannon balls or any other attacks, the
tentacles do not make any attempt to dodge the attacks since they are blind.
The whistling wind brushes past my ears as the fireballs find their targets and
explode with frightening ferocity. Crimson flames attach to the tentacles like
glue and slowly drain their already depleted health. Based on the current rate
of damage, both tentacles should die in a few minutes.

The tentacles wriggle and squirm under the blaze and even fall
back under the water to extinguish the flames. Unfortunately for them,
suffocating the flames in water will make no difference. The tentacles soon
emerge from the water with the flames still blazing as strongly as before.

The enemy attacks with its dying breath; one final, desperate
attempt to crush us along with the boat. Mason shoots the tentacles with a wide
area blast of wind, drastically slowing them down and allowing Sir Laurence to
successfully block them. This is truly their final attack, as my dire flames
finally drain the remainder of their health and they sink back into the ocean.

I turn around and see Mikhail the Stalwart, Moonkite, and
JohnSmite finish off the final enemy, the guild leader dealing the final strike
which actually severs then tentacle in two. A seven meter section of tentacle
falls down and flops onto the deck of the ship.

CaptainGordon emerges from the bowels of the vessel with the
other three and a huge grin on his face, “Now that be a battle! Ye
guys be better than the last weak-kneed bunch I recruited! Only one of ye died
too! Wish I could o’ been ‘ere to see the action!”

The captain pulls out a rope and excitedly starts hoisting the
severed tentacle out of everyone’s way while maneuvering around the holes in
the deck. He then recruits Mikhail’s help in dissecting the tentacle into
smaller, more manageable pieces. I take this opportunity to approach the
pirate.

“CaptainGordon,” I ask as I help carry the tentacle segments
down into the food cargo hold below deck, “would you mind continuing on with
the answer to the earlier question? I cannot seem to get it off my mind.”

We descend along a wooden staircase that creaks with every step.
There is no safety rail, so I have to be extra careful not to fall off as the
ship rides the ocean swells. The interior of the ship has a lot of the black
cast iron as well, with nearly every single major structural support or beam
being made out of the iron. There are numerous doors leading off into the
unknown, but I do not have the time to investigate them all.

“Ah, that.” He suddenly seems nervous, almost unsure as to
whether he wants to say it or not, and that only makes me want to know more.
“It be a class skill.”

“A class skill?”

“Yeah, to be precise. It be called ‘Class Skill: Combustion
Engineer’. Strangely, it require an item to be gotten for this ‘ere class
skill. Follow me down further ‘nd you get it. Also, nobody else can be knowin’
’bout this ‘ere, so don’t go blabbin’.”

“Of course.”

I follow the captain down to the end of the corridor and descend
a second staircase very similar to the first. I feel that we have now entered
the true heart of the vessel. There are only three rooms down here, and
CaptainGordon takes the right hand one seemingly at random.

Inside the room are innumerable copper pipes extending from a
single furnace and into the walls and ceiling. The vessel ‘Bastion’ is clearly
hosting countless mysteries and secrets.

The pirate opens the grate to the furnace and black, billowing
smoke comes pouring out like an overflowing cauldron. Inside the near-darkness,
I see a black lump in the center of the cauldron, but cannot make out what it
is.

“This ‘ere be the item I mentioned. A fist-sized god stone of
combustanite. It be excreting an endless supply o’ flammable gas. I harness
this ‘ere with me class skill to make these items. I still be an engineer,
after all!”

I spend a few moments staring at the vague rock in the center of
the furnace before finally moving on. The class skill seems to align with
everything the captain has said, so I have no desire to doubt him, but I still
get the impression that there is a vital piece of information I am missing. I
briefly consider pushing for more information, but decide it isn’t worth
upsetting our host and soon forget about it as we continue on with our voyage
atop the ocean waves.  

Our food for the next three days, breakfast, lunch, and dinner,
is roast squid. It tastes good at first, but everyone quickly tires of eating
it constantly. CaptainGordon is the only one that seems to have no aversion to
the same single-ingredient dish every meal.

The captain brings up a large amount of wood from below deck and
starts to work on replacing the flooring of the deck. There is no shortage of
damage to other sections of the vessel, but CaptainGordon is the only one with
the game skills to repair any of it. He starts whistling an incredibly
irritating tune while working that makes everyone apart from Fen frown. At
first I think she is impervious to it, but then I see the small ear plugs, made
of ice, in her ears.

Three days gradually turn into a week, or two and a half days in
real life, before we finally encounter our second sea monster. By this time,
the ship is already half repaired, but won’t be able to take the same beating
again.

Two hundred meters in front of the ‘Bastion’, a large shadow
appears under the surface. It gets closer and larger every second, filling me
with deep dread.

“It be a big one this time!!” CaptainGordon shouts out in a
thunderous voice. “Verde, Lockon, SomaHealer, do ye three recall what I showed
ye last time?”

“Of course,” SomaHealer is the first to reply. “Is it time for
that?”

“It be time!”

Verde turns to the rest of our party and nervously nods her head,
“I don’t really understand this very well, but I will help the others.”

The three of them rush below deck at top speed. This time,
CaptainGordon doesn’t follow them down. Instead, he stands at the helm while
whistling that appalling tune.

I don’t really understand what is going on, but I stand at the
bow of the ship and wait for the sea monster to emerge from the water. From
somewhere below the deck, the grinding of gears sounds and the entire vessel
vibrates gently. I also hear the scraping of metal and lean over the railing to
investigate the noise.

A large iron plate around the bow of the ship is sliding down,
creating small sparks against another iron plate from the friction. A large
cavity is suddenly revealed in the front of the ship. The movement of heavy
wheels echoes from within the cavity, and a strange cannon emerges.

The cannon has three large barrels in the shape of a triangle,
similar to the artwork on the pirate flag above us. The barrels are extra long
compared to a standard cannon, but I can’t see the rest of the weapon to figure
out exactly how it works. I assume it fires three cannonballs at once.

I can also now hear the sound of ropes tightening and clips
clicking into place. Just as I am wondering what comes next, the sound of
gunpowder lighting and the first cannonball being fired cracks the air and
makes my ears ring.

The first cannonball falls short and off to the right, an
explosion of water indicating where it hits.

“LEFT FOUR! ASCEND TWO! KEEP FIRING!!” The captain screams so
loud his voice starts to crack. I sarcastically wonder whether I should be more
concerned of hearing the cannon or his voice.

The barrels on the tri-cannon start rotating at a measured pace,
neither slowly nor quickly. Each time one of the barrels reaches the apex of
its rotation, a single cannonball is fired with a slight vibration through the
boat and the sounds of ropes tensing under the counterforce. The speed is about
one cannonball every one and a half seconds.

The eruptions of water gradually get closer to the shadow under
the water, until one finally hits it. A small health bar in the distance shows
up, a small section already removed.

“THAT BE IT!! HOLD STEADY! DESCEND ONE EVERY THREE!” The second
order sounds out, full of joy.

The cannonballs start to track the shadow as it gets closer,
only a few missing the target by a fraction to either side. When the shadow is
fifty meters away and down to half health, it emerges from the water.

The sea monster is a giant, whiskered fish twice the size of the
‘Bastion’. It’s a deep red color and has three vicious sets of teeth extending
out from its mouth. The cannonballs have a much easier time hitting the target
above the water, not a single one missing. Perhaps it is due to the water not
diminishing the strength behind each hit, but the cannonballs do twice the
damage to the sea monster now that it has emerged.