Elisha was gripping the railing, watching with a growing look of concern as the hands that were reaching for the ship once again closed in on them from the side. The Cloudkiller jerked, the bow rising higher in the air as it came about, before settling back down slightly as the ship skirted away.

It was a testament to the skill of Keller and his coordination with the mages in charge of the sailwind that they even had control of the ship at this point. The Flask, as the crew were partial to calling it, would increase the volume of water it shot out to the very end. By now it was displacing so much water that the ship was starting to slow down with the same amount of thrust.

Keller had already correctly recalled the mages and wizards that would normally be assigned to casting Freeze, thinking he would use them to repel boarders. For now, that was still the idea. Soon, in the last few minutes of flight available to them, all the wizards on deck would be required to just keep the ship in the air against the rising amount of force slamming against the front of the hull. Eventually the artificial waterfall would be pushing out so much water that the thrust wouldn’t be enough to lift the bow. Even turning now was becoming increasingly dicey.

“Fire at will!” Captain Keller called. In response the guns began to speak in a non-uniform pattern from below. Since it was no longer to do the long broadsides toward the portal with all the things in the air trying to grab them, he had determined that the cannons should just fire whenever they had a target.

It was a good call…

It was probably the decision that bought them an extra bit of time before they learned another awful feature of the dark shadow hands that stretched out endlessly. Some of them started to grab the hull, which they expected. Dark fingers breached the wooden hull and grabbed on, further slowing them down.

“Enemies below!” Desperate voices cried out from the open doorway that lead to the firing deck. Almost immediately cries of battle and the sounds of skills being fired off sounded below her feet.

Elisha grimaced and leaned over the railing, trying to see how they’d been boarded. The resulting image made her expression turn even worse. The hands were starting to reach into the ship through the gunports. They must also be capable of depositing enemies in the same fashion the pouring liquid from the portal did.

Forsythe strode passed her while she was still debating on a course of action. He didn’t even look in her direction, disappearing through the open doorway.

Elisha started after him but Schulia grabbed he shoulder. “Let him go,” she suggested. “We need you up here in case they board on top!”

Looking around she saw that nearly all the mages were invested in pushing the ship along now. The remainder of the crew weren’t necessarily even combat oriented. They had been chosen based on their contribution to the project and also on a job need basis. Originally that was a good choice, having people on hand that could repair the ship in case it was needed. Now, since they were going to fall out of the air any second, it seemed like she had just doomed several people.

At least the ride was good.

Raven and War made their way through the streets south. There wasn’t any need to navigate. Easily visible for anyone looking for it was the giant portal of doom spitting out whatever it was that evil portals spat.

Since the armistice was called there wasn’t any reason to be wary of Transients running through the streets. At this point it was a bunch of people running toward the danger and a larger majority moving away. Those fleeing had grim expressions and hurried quickly, assisted by skills if they had them and moving at their best speed if they didn’t.

Raven was exhausted, if she was being honest. She was tired of this war, tired of all the people, and if Amelia hadn’t dropped this in her lap she probably would have logged out to take a nap. The idea of logging out at this juncture and then being made fun of by Forsythe and Aidan was the only that that kept her going.

“Do you think Forsythe made something to eat on that ship?” Raven was trying not to pay attention to the really awesome sky battle that kept wandering into her field of vision some distance away. If the water dropping from the ship wasn’t reportedly cursed she might already be scaling one of the smaller buildings and trying to figure out how to leap up there. War could… probably throw her that far, right?

War kindly shook their head, “my understanding of your friend makes me imagine him hugging his knees and rocking back and forth in horror.”

Raven cheered up quite a bit at that. She could absolutely imagine it. He’d have that stone face and would be muttering something about how this was all wrong, or something. “Hey! You’re right!”

War smiled again, and then their gaze peeled off to the front. “Time to work.”

“Mmm,” Raven summoned her greatsword and turned to see what got War’s attention. “Let’s see what the fuss is about, I suppose.”

“As you wish,” War replied.

They stood in the middle of the street and just waited. The few remaining people had just rushed passed them and now the street was mostly empty save for the shambling creatures that had appeared.

Raven tried to whistle the intro to a spaghetti western but lost track of which one she was going for after a second, “ah, nuts.”

As the creatures came closer Raven was startled to find that they all appeared to be wet. The foremost was a larger humanoid shape, and it was dripping a black oily substance from top to bottom. As the liquid hit the ground the cobblestone hisses and made general unhappy acid noises. Raven’s eyes narrowed as she studied the ground, making a very seriously impressed face when she saw that the droplets burned or scoured the ground before running back into the feet of their origin creature.

“The speed is nothing we can’t handle,” was War’s only spoken thought.

War had barely gotten that out of their mouth when several Transients who had been hiding in a nearby building struck out and tried to sneak attack the creatures. With a roar one of the two came out the doorway and the other simply stabbed their spear at the closest creature through an open window.

Raven’s eyes barely caught up to what happened before the two Transients got absolutely wasted. The unhurried creatures speed changed in intensity by a factor of ten when the two players came close enough. The one being attacked through the window dodged out of the way of the spear, had time to look at it, grabbed it, and then pulled the player through the window before it and two other creatures rushed over and started to smother them in oily blows. The spearman through the doorway didn’t do much better. Though they had managed to stick the creature they attacked in the back, the creature’s head swiveled around 180 degrees before it reformed it’s body to be facing it’s attacker. It then oozed over the spear and directly began striking the player.

“How about now?” Raven asked, finding herself a little less confident all of a sudden.

“Faster, but doable,” War did their best to sound unimpressed but Raven saw that their stance was becoming much more alert.

Finished with their prey, the creatures started to resume their slow march forward. That only lasted for a second as they all seemed to home in on them at the same time.

With a frightening alacrity that made both War and Raven snap their weapons up, they surged toward them.

Aidan was the first one to spot the hands that weren’t just making grabby motions toward the Cloudkill. Several players had already pointed out that the hands were extending over the rooftops as if they were looking for something, so he had been keeping an eye raised toward the flat roofs for when they arrived.

It was way too quick.

The first few hands bridged the roof and then shot down like spears toward Vienne.

“[One]!” Lightning branched out from the Unfair Stick and struck several as they neared. His spell seemed fully capable of destroying the hands, but the arms and wrists they were attached to retreated slightly, no doubt regenerating.

Several other skills and spells were called out as others recognized the encroaching danger.

Amelia looked up briefly and then lost interest, resuming her attempt at coordinating people. Aidan shook his head and then made large strides over to some of the people guarding Vienne directly. Gilduirn, Rat, someone named Mavis, and Gabriel all gave him a quick nod before resuming their scanning for dangers.

“How we doing?” Aidan asked.

Gabriel shrugged, casting a look at Vienne. He opened his mouth, probably to tell Aidan that there hadn’t been a change, when Vienne suddenly moved for the first time since they sat down.

Vienne gagged and then shuddered. Their eyes opened wide, but even though they were open they could all tell immediately that Vienne wasn’t seeing anyone. She shook and shivered again and then started choking before calming down.

“That’s not disconcerting at all,” Mavis ventured.

Vienne coughed violently for a moment and then sat straighter, mouth forming into a grim line. She stilled once more, fighting something privately. A thin trail of dark liquid began falling from bother her nostrils, eyes, and ears.

“I am feeling more and more confident,” Mavis said when no one else spoke up to fill the incredibly awkward silence.

Aidan stared at Vienne, trying to see if she was done actively dying for the moment, and then turned to Mavis. “Oh! Did you get the brochure? This sort of wondrous adventure where you think everything is going to crap is a loving function that one can come to expect as routine!”

Mavis just stared at him, a half-smile warring with a look of real concern.

“I’m sorry to inform you that he’s not kidding,” Gilduirn smiled tightly.

“I don’t even remember the last time I was happy,” Rat complained.

“I’m not even part of this group normally and can confirm that the situationis always awful,” Gabriel smiled, apparently not immune to the sudden nervous banter that was spouting up.

“It’s always worse when Aidan’s here, though,” Gilduirn said thoughtfully.

“Oh my god, you’re right,” Rat said it like it was an epiphany.

“I’ve been thinking that for a while,” Gabriel nodded.

Mavis was slackjawed now, looking from one to the other.

“I can’t wait for more shadow puppet hands to come through here and stick their hands right up your--” Aidan began, and then he stopped. Because the hands were coming.

Scores of them started to burst through the windows and doors of the buildings around them. As people called out the danger skills and spells on the fringe began to fly. Hands that were cut down did not regenerate or retreat this time, instead the wrists and arms fell to the ground and began writhing, leaking a deep oily substance. The puddles began to pool upward into the shape of enemies.

“Why are you like this?” Rat whined at Aidan.

“You’re all a bunch of wimps, things could still be worse,” Mavis summoned a huge two-handed hammer. The Purple haired woman smiled at them cheerfully. “Look on the bright side!”

“Ahaha! I’m here! Safe!” Fanciful slid to a stop next to Aidan and smiled cheerfully. She stuck her pole in the ground and held out her hand to him. “Let’s all be friends for a bit!”

Aidan, Gilduirn, Rat, and Gabriel turned toward Mavis with varying looks of disbelief.

Mavis seemed to wilt under their accusatory looks.

Fanciful looked back and forth between everyone and then stared at Mavis, eyes narrowing slightly. “What did you do, Mave?”

Rat sighed. “I love hands! I can’t wait!”

“Bring on the shadow petro creatures,” Gilduirn muttered.

“One of you, please send me to the Cathedral, I am worth so many points,” Aidan looked desperate.

“But… I’m on your side,” Gabriel muttered, “are you worth points to me?”

Before it could be get anymore confusing for Fanciful the first oil creatures on the ground hit the line of fighters in front of them. They all readied themselves to deal with any that got passed.

Forsythe found the situation below decks to be bad, but not terrible. There were a few creatures that gave him pause when he first arrived. One or two black puddle creatures. They were very fast, but he was faster.

The bad news was that they had killed several of the Transients that had been manning the guns. Those that were still alive, to their credit, seemed to have run toward the back of the ship away from the creatures and done their best to resume firing the guns.

The good news was that the two creatures were dispatched easily. They were freakishly fast but didn’t have any weapon. Trying to grab him was foolish, it was such a basic move that his body moved without thought. It only took one stab to realize that was the wrong tactic, so he didn’t do that anymore. Decapitation and bisection worked fine. The puddles split apart and fell to the deck floor, laying there. The liquid was looking pretty shady, and also eating through the deck, so Forsythe paused for a moment and then checked his inventory.

Sure enough, when he found the item in his inventory that he wanted, he looked back down to find the puddles already trying to push back against gravity and take a shape.

Forsythe crouched down and tore the top off the box in his hand, shaking the flour and starch over the puddles. A small hand reached out from the puddle making a dying grasp at the air before the flour thickened the liquid into a useless hard shape.

Needlessly dramatic. Forsythe thought.

Forsythe then produced a small dustpan from his inventory and scooped up the result of flour and evil goop creature like he was scooping soiled cat litter. He moved to the gunport and dumped it out into open air. He stared out, watching it fall for a long moment before he slowly slunk away from the open window.

He shuddered violently.

“Why am I here? This is awful, just awful.” Forsythe looked up to see that the gun crews were all staring at him in open astonishment. Forsythe belatedly lifted the dustpan(it was that or the saber) and waved at them. “Hello.”

He smiled, pleased when one awkwardly waved back.

Movement from the corner of his eye got his attention as a hand deposited two more of the shadow creatures into the hold. Forsythe’s expression deadened and he gave an apologetic wave to the gun crews. He set down the dust pan on the floor nearby. He’d need it.

Armed with a box of flour and a saber, Forsythe grimly went toward the creatures that were forming up.