BECMI Chapter 375 – Immortal Storms
Four Control Weather spells at IX+1 (thank you, Dread’s IP) took the howling winds of this Immortal-powered Storm down to stiff gusts we could actually run in front of, dropped the amount of icy rain by three-quarters, and turned the hellish storm into a rough but survivable ride requiring great efforts, but it was not lethal.
The hardest thing was making sure the hundred ships didn’t run into one another on the surface, which was harder than it seemed even with a mile radius to work with. The winds and waves almost seemed like they were conspiring to drive the ships together, which would result in the ruin of both, and the crews were working like mad to make sure they stayed as far from one another as was possible.
The Scampering Wave played the role of savior, with a Calm Waters in effect around it which reduced the greatest of mounting waves to little more than a ripple, vanishing into the magic and leaving a swathe of clear ocean upwind of us. The Wave could and did maneuver deftly and speedily through the storm, helping any ship that looked to be foundering by eliminating the wave action pounding at it, giving the frantic crews time to bail it out, set it aright… or in one case, evacuate to the Wave before the longship broke up and went under.
I was up on Duum, holding the heart of the formation, Primus dealing with the winds as inconsequential, while Dread glittered and slowly fed on the Immortal Power sustaining this thing, sapping the storm’s unnatural strength and conversely forcing the Immortal driving it to spend more energy just to keep it around, rather preventing them from up-scaling the storm, or even Dispelling my own magic while they tried to keep the storm extant.
Both Delphax and Tenya were using this storm to send us into the fight that much faster. The six Qeogur vessels had split off and hopefully were outside the reach of the storm, although if it had caught them, it had likely sunk them.
Riding a giant Bat over a churning ocean and looking a howling northeaster dead in the eye, the armada continued on its course, battered and bruised, but also hurried to its destination.
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Twenty hours later, the volcanic island that was the source of the poison clouds was looming on the suddenly clearing horizon.
It was evening, and we were some twenty miles from our destination, the waves receding to a rather rough chop that the exhausted crews could deal with. The only clouds in the sky were behind us, and they were breaking up with unnatural speed, their job done and the power that had formed the storm depleted and gone.
Three ships had been lost, two colliding when a pair of monstrous waves carried them into one another, impossible to stop. Most of the crews would have gone down with them… except a certain someone had a Swarm of Water Elementals in the waters for the express purpose of rescuing any mariners that were washed overboard.
Our total casualties for the storm ended up being less than twoscore men swept overboard and gone missing, or dead in the initial crash between the two ships.
Still, there were a lot of frantic repairs to be done, especially of sails, and the bailing didn’t stop. Everybody could feel something coiling in the air as the moon rose. That smoking peak was still visible ahead of us, waiting to spring something on us, and new clouds were starting to form around it and head our way.
Duum brought us back down to the Wave, which was busy moving men around to other vessels and alleviating overcrowding as it dispersed crews.
“Well?” was all Sama said, up on the prow as the tired crew rested behind her, fatigued but proud of the work they’d done and the men they’d saved.
“Something was dispatched after the storm passed, it’s just taking time to get here. I didn’t see it on the surface or in the air.”
Sama’s eyes dipped to the waters instantly. She wasn’t a medieval, and the idea of submarine warfare was far from alien to her. “How long?” she asked shortly.
“About an hour.”
“Send it out.”
“Lady Edge to the Eiscall Armada. An opposing force has been sent out to deal with us. It is neither on the sea nor in the air, so it must be approaching us from under the surface.
“You have about half an hour to effect repairs, and then it is going to be time for battle stations. Captains, ready your men. The fighting will be beginning shortly.”
Groans went up from behind us, but if anything, the work being done only picked up. Nobody wanted to be caught with tangled or ripped sails or ropes in combat at sea…
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The enemy came out up of the deeps suddenly, erupting from below the surface with magical ease and crews that didn’t need to breathe. They had bone armor hull plating, necromantically-powered siege engines, and spellcasting undead officers with great resistance to Turning leading the unliving crews.
I watched a couple of waterspouts charged with black water go spinning hundreds of feet up into the air, and glanced at Sama. She made a knowing face, realizing the Horizon would have been torn out of the air and ripped apart by the magic at play there.
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There was an Immortal around here somewhere.
It was thus old-school naval combat, only it was completely lopsided. Not only was the fleet from Eiscall overpowered in ships and crew quality, we had to deal with the wind, and the magically-propelled undead ships didn’t care about such things at all.
Which didn’t mean they were going to win so handily, because I was there, and really, that was all that we needed.
The first ship to come charging in at us had its deck swept clear of its crew by me, with Chained Shards blowing apart every undead aboard it in violent unwhite explosions. The aghast crew of the Scampering Wave watched it lurch on by, losing power and starting to break apart even as the vivus took hold and began to feast on it. It didn’t make it a quarter-mile behind us before it was sinking and heading for the bottom.
Water didn’t stop vivus from feeding things to the Land.
From the churning skies half-occluded by poison fogs, screaming Skullbolts came down on the undead ships, blasting through hulls and decks that were all too vulnerable to the vivic energy riding the Lightning, holing the vessels driving towards us and setting the tops and innards of the ships afire with vivus.
A wave of my hand, and the two ballista on board the Scampering Wave here were also Enhanced with Vivic. The frantic men loaded and drove the bolts into the hulls coming at us, all around us, and they cheered as the bone-clad sea-soaked hulls were set to blazing with misting unwhite flames devouring them far faster than natural fires could.
The sudden roar was like twisted thunder, rivaling the crack of the Skullbolts coming down in black flowerstalks clapping like silver bells and shrieking Skulls blowing apart in roses of vivus that punched through incredibly tough undead hulls, sprayed the crew, and turned them into blazing, misting hulks. The outrage in it was palpable as the fourth ship of the attackers began to founder, and it hadn’t even reached attack range of my ship yet.
Of course, half our armada was already rammed, boarded, and fighting for its life, while the other half was desperately trying to avoid the same fate while being penned in by unnaturally fast ships that were ignoring the wind and immune to flaming projectiles because they were totally soaked after coming up from under the waves.
A great winged figure bearing a Sword with a blade eight feet long, all monstrously dramatic in design and totally cringy on the aesthetics unless you were a Chaotic Evil bastard who loved his Abyssal Dire sword designs, leapt up on top of the cabin of the biggest of the undead vessels, still a half-mile away and out of Skullbolt range. Flames ignited around him, his overly long horns, and his Sword. With a beat of His great black bat-like wings, he was airborne and shooting our way like a comet.
“A demon!” screamed the first seaman, and the shouts of terror began to arise behind us.
“Shut up. It’s fucking dead.”
Sama’s Warlord Voice cut right through the screams and silenced them all instantly with pure confidence and even more blood-lust. She swung up on the railing of the Scampering Wave, balancing effortlessly despite the faint rising and falling wave motion of the ship, and put her hand to Tremble.
Ding! Ting!
The warning notes spread for some distance, and the crew swallowed as something broke in the air, like incoming dread and horror was shattering against a wall of blood-thirst.
I distinctly saw the demon’s eyes narrow in anger that neither she nor I were showing the slightest indications of fear. A Fireball flared into existence and raced ahead to punish us for such effrontery.
Sama flicked Tremble, and a Sharding scythe flashed out, an arc of force which intercepted that Fireball and cut it apart. Roaring demonic flames sprayed past us, wailing and dying without even managing to light up a sail, although the seawaters hissed and billowed mightily with a cloud of steam that whipped rapidly away behind us.
“A demon flies ‘neath poisoned skies, and thinks he’s come to slay.
A petty fiend with noisome needs who has only found a Way
to TREMBLE!
TREMBLE, SHE COMES!”
He was just reaching fifty yards out when Sama cut again, then stamped her foot down.
Yeah, it was extreme range for a Sharding attack, -10 to hit. Yeah, the thing had an Armor Class of 35 or something.
It didn’t matter. The screams of the Dreadskull on Tremble’s pommel, wailing with thirst and anathema, followed the stroke as it hissed out faster than an arrow, and at the same time, she stepped off to one side.
Not to get her balance on the rail. No, it was just to put her foot down.
Despite his size, the demon had good reflexes, but he still wasn’t expecting a sword slash at that distance. He shouted as the arc tore into his intimidating wings… and sliced half his left wing right off!
Now, there was more magic than wings involved in his flying, it was true. Unfortunately for him, there was now a Null Interdiction field in effect, which meant King Gravity woke up from His snoozing, looked down, and stomped His foot in irritation at what he beheld below.
With a startled shriek, the Roaring Demon, a warlord and general among their kind, plummeted out of the sky and headed right into the drink.
Now Sama moved, just as the bow of the boat bounced and catapulted her impossibly far into the air. The sailors all gaped as she went up, and Tremble went with her, streaks of black and white Fires wrapped around it and making it twice the size it should be.
Boiling waters almost blew the demon back up to the surface, raging at the mockery of its fall.
Ding! Ting!
He looked up, and down she came, paying proper homage to King Gravity by falling quite a bit faster than Gravity demanded she do.
A wall of wrathflame followed Tremble down.
The Fiend tried to get his flaming Dire Blade of Ubahness up into position, but didn’t get it up in time as the Sword came down on his skull and split it in twain, continuing on with terrible, magical violence as Sama actually paused right at the surface of the water, all her momentum fed into her strike.
Yeah, that was a full Charge, Death from Above, lance modifiers for Spirited Charge, Valor, Tremble executing its x4 damage ability on top, a base damage number Titans would enjoy with their swords, and enough Feats and Masteries related to a Grandmaster of the Sword to shake a stick at.
He had six different defensive spells on him, and it didn’t help him a whit, including the Contingency.
The overconfident bastard was so dead!