“Nice,” said Deacon as he looked at the pile of corpses.

Soul energy began to emanate from the bodies and Deacon absorbed all of it. Seems that slaver pirates only count as common souls netting him five percent each. He thought by the time he was done they’ll be considered rare. Deacon then turned his thoughts to the trapped passengers below. All of the pirates weapons floated up into the air, the flap on Deacon’s satchel opened and they deposited themselves inside. As he began to phase himself through the frozen over bars, he was brought up short. Deacon discovered he couldn’t phase through Nether ice. He thought that made sense considering what it was made from. So Deacon ducked right and went through the wall.

The interior of the cabin deck was in chaos. People were screaming at each other that Deacon had left them to starve and die. Others were calling him a punishment from the masters for disobeying them. This wouldn’t serve Deacon’s plan, so he needed to stop them from going for each other’s throats.

“People! Please, calm yourselves. I’m here to get you out. I just needed to block the door so they couldn’t interrupt me. I’ll open it right now. Then I intend to release anyone that’s above us before taking the ship,” Deacon yelled over the cacophony.

“He’s lying! They’ll never let us out of here. We don’t even have weapons to defend ourselves,” screeched a woman toward the back of the room.

This whole time Deacon was channeling Infernal energy and layering it atop his ice through his aura. At the mention of weapons he used Polterheist to eject the weapons in his bag he just acquired.

“Best I could do on short notice. As I kill more slavers we’ll get more,” called Deacon over his shoulder.

Several people stepped forward to claim one of the five weapons. They then spun around pointing them at the others didn’t get one. One burly looking Deep Dweller slashed out at them with his new short sword telling them to get back. Then a brown skinned hand grabbed him by the wrist to arrest his momentum on the back swing.

“Stop it,” said Deacon, as he stared down at the frantic Dweller with orange-red pupils.

“By the ten hells, what kind of demon are you?” said the Dweller before cowering back.

“The kind that’s done unfreezing the gate. Those that want to fight back come with me. I’ll need the others to be lookouts. Can we do that?” asked Deacon exuding an air of authority he didn’t realize he had.

Deacon received several nods of agreement. He then turned back to the still locked iron bars. Digging his dragon claws into the wood where the bars met the ceiling, he started pulling. There was some cracks and groaning coming from the ceiling. Several people behind him began to make derisive comments. Then all at once the wood above the cage door buckled and the barred door tipped inward and fell to the floor.

“How many points in strength do you have?” asked a human to Deacon’s right.

“Enough. Mind the corpses,” answered Deacon as he strode forward.

“Gods above, what happened here?” asked an older dark skinned woman with elven features.

“Let’s go I don’t know what they are planning upstairs, but they are running around like someone kicked their ant hill. I’m going to scout ahead. You hold the stairs,” Deacon said as he grabbed the ceiling above him and pulled his head through it.

On the next deck he could see slavers securing prisoners in a line before the door leading up. They had them chained up facing out. The majority of them looked beaten and battered. These must be the ones that weren’t fit enough to row or willing to fight back. Inside the stairwell stood a man in a tricornered hat holding a whip and barking out orders. Then several of the slaves shuffled in one direction opposite the others. Between Deacon and the line of slaves were several large holding pens. They must have emptied them out to make the human barricade. Then something shiny caught Deacon’s attention. The group that shuffled around were all carrying swords and weren’t bound by chains. Deacon checked his slave sense and confirmed his suspicions. The slavers mixed themselves in with the slaves to prepare a counter offensive. They didn’t know Deacon could pinpoint them. He thought this might be entertaining before a realization hit him.

Deacon surmised this was all taking too long. Four to six minutes to free the prisoners, another five minutes to clear the stairwell. He wasn’t even done with the second deck yet and there was going to be another fight. Multiply all this delay by the number of ships he needed to get to after this and he was going to have to call an audible. For the next ship he would attack their captain first, that way gaining control of the vessel will be an afterthought. For now he had this to deal with.

“Should any of those slaves still live, we gut them and get a new crop from the Shattered Sky. I’ll not have this nonsense on my ship,” said the one in the stairwell up with the whip.

Appearing from the deck flooring, Deacon strode down the length of deck two startling the first row of slaves. He stopped twenty feet back from the living wall of people and just stood there, orange-red eyes glowing in the darkness.

“It’s some kind of demon!” cried one chained slave who feverishly clawed at his collar.

“There’s no demon’s on my ship. You there state your business and put on this collar while you’re at it. I’ve had enough of this today,” the obvious captain called out before tossing down a slave collar.

“No,” was all Deacon said before stepping closer.

“Boys, beat him within an inch of his life. I’ll break him personally after all of this is settled,” said the captain.

Four of the slavers that were mixed into the crowd lunged forward with grasping hands and several black jacks aiming at Deacon’s head. The passed harmlessly through him before Deacon dropped into monkey style. Throats were gouged and arms were broken. Large gouts of blood sprayed out from two of them thanks to Deacon’s Blood River title. They bled out quickly and were out of the fight. The whole front row of slaves were covered in arterial spray. All the while Deacon’s orange-red pupils never left the captains. He watched as shock hit the captain before it turned to disbelief and finally what Deacon was waiting for, fear. Several more slavers came out and met the same fates before one stood out. Deacon’s instincts told him to dodge so he activated Spectral Dash. This slaver had a baton that sparked up with electricity.

“Captain, he’s afraid of enchanted weapons!” yelled a triumphant slaver.

His victory was soon eroded as Deacon created a large Infernal Sickle, sending it spinning into the mans stomach. He screamed from searing pain of his internal organs being flash fried and dropped the baton. Deacon pushed his flailing body over to cook on the floor before squatting down over the collar the captain had thrown. Deacon extended his right hand and tapped the metal device eyes still locked on the captains. The collar disintegrated into ash that sifted through the floorboards.

“Slave Masters Bane! Shit!” shrieked the captain as he dropped a vile on the stairs before sprinting up them.

The vile burst into a thick smoke cloud that began filling the stairwell and made some of the slaves closest to it start gagging. Deacon switched back to Nether energy to douse the crispy slaver before the infernal flames burnt the ship down. He needed to get to the slaves that were chained in place, but the smoke was making them panic. Deacon only spared a second to think about what the captain said. He knew his title so that meant he wasn’t the only one to ever get it. Now he had to change power sources if he wanted to deal with that cloud of smoke.

“It can’t rain all the time,” whispered Deacon before two horns of storm clouds grew from his forehead.

Deacon assumed there was a small cloud above the ship somewhere that would just be ignored during the existing rain fall. As the clouds around his feet began to billow, he used Spectral Jump to sail over the struggling slaves and land in the stairwell. Deacon received a notification from his slate as soon as he entered the smoke cloud, but he ignored it. Instead focusing on using his aura to rotate the storm clouds around his feet kicking up a minor wind effect. Shortly thereafter the all the smoke was in a human sized funnel centered on him. Deacon dove for the far wall dragging his mini tornado with him. He popped out of the hull and willed his storm clouds to stop spinning. Deacon dug his right claw into the wood to prevent himself from falling. The smoke started blowing away in the stormy weather out here. That’s when he took a second to check his slate.

You have been poisoned with a suffocating toxin. Your Triage skill is reducing the damage taken and your poison resistance is fighting off the effects.

Poison resistance has increased to eight percent.

“That’s just nasty. Gotta get back in there,” he said.

Deacon dove back through the wall to see the slaves with weapons from downstairs were collecting the weapons from the fallen up here. Pressed for time, Deacon moved over to the chained slaves and began popping their collars. Several of them tried to flinch away from Deacon storm horned visage.

“Sorry, its an ability. I swear I’m here to help. Oh by the way, accept my party invite. It’ll heal you like I did for them,” Deacon said gesturing toward the slaves from below.

After another few minutes of chain breaking and collar disintegrating, Deacon had the first batch of slave organize the much more healthy looking new batch. That meant he was headed up. Pleased with the success he made thus far, he decided to use the same tactic as before. He phased through the ceiling to the crew quarters above noting the canon that was pointed at the stairwell exit to that level. Behind it stood the captain and one other sailor. This one wore robes and carried a staff. The staff was made of metal and a ball of fire hovered atop it. The captain stood with a long stick with two ends that curved away from each other. One end was being heated up by the mage. Deacon pulled himself up into one the rooms just off the hallway. He then floated four goblin crossbows out of his bag. They were preloaded thanks to Ralph. Deacon poked his head through the wall to get a good targeting sight on both men. Then he floated the four crossbows out of the doorway and used Polterheist to pull the triggers. One shot aimed at the captain flew wide and the other crossbow aimed at him broke it’s string. The other two struck true into the face of mage.

The mage screamed in agony and dropped his staff reaching up to his face to pull out the arrows. The captain ducked banging into the small cannon forcing it to flip up and point at the ceiling. That’s when the ball of fire on the staff fell past the firing hole for the canon. It blew a hole up and through the top deck. The noise was loud and jarring but Deacon used this opportunity to sprint down the hallway. He launched himself with folded knees right at the mage crushing his ribcage and taking his soul. The captain sprinted up the stairs as the last gasps of air came from his mage. Deacon used Spectral Jump to close the distance with the captain in the stairwell and they both flew up and out of the stairs before the captain could pull his hand out of a pouch. This prevented the Captain from dropping another smoke cloud.

Now on the top deck, Deacon could see the skeleton crew that was keeping the ship from succumbing to the storm. It was only three men running back and forth and pulling on ropes. Once they saw him grappling with the captain, they dropped a long boat into the water. The captain was obviously planning on escaping but he couldn’t reach his men while being pinned down by Deacon. The captain jabbed up into Deacon’s armpit with a needle. It forced Deacon’s right arm to go numb. Deacon knew immediately what had happened. He didn’t take any damage, but the captain hit a never cluster that Deacon learned about during his Pressure Palm training. That allowed the ship captain to roll out from under him.

“Good luck sailing this ship on your own. Once I make it to the next vessel, they’ll be ordered to fire upon this one. You’re a dead man—” the captain was interrupted by arcs of black and purple lighting that fired from Deacon’s left hand.

He stood there shaking from the electricity and smoking as all the components on his person for black powder exploded around his waist. The top half of the captain flew over the edge and collided with the final three sailors climbing a rope ladder down to the boat launch. Falling from the top deck down into the long boat caused the vessel to snap in half from the weight of three and half men. Deacon leaned over the edge and looked at a horrified Jeremiah gliding back and forth.

“That was the signal,” yelled Deacon.