Chapter 80: Swimming with the Sharks (1/2)
“My crown…” Vainqueur mourned, as he rested on the ship’s deck. “My imperial crown…”
“I know, Your Majesty,” Manling Victor reassured him, while his undead dwarf lackeys oversaw the pirates. After salvaging whatever they could from the shipwreck and raising their dead minions with the power of Victor's cup, the adventurers had spent hours in that Devil’s Triangle, with no shore in sight. “We will get you another!”
“You better, minion!” Vainqueur had taken the captain’s hat as a replacement—after the birdkin pirate kindly ‘gave’ it to him—but it wasn’t the same! Neither did his accommodations befit his station!
After the pirates offered Vainqueur the ship out of the goodness of their hearts, the dragon had climbed on its deck and managed to fit between two masts. It was incredibly uncomfortable, but the dragon considered himself too good to fly when minions could transport him instead.
He still mourned the destruction of his Piggybank with all his heart though.
So he had renamed the ship the Piggybank II.
“Troll Barnabas will have to remake another crown from scratch, even shinier!”
“I will try to contact him again, as soon as we leave the triangle,” Friend Victor said, turning to the two pirates who tried to rob him. “How far are we from civilization?”
“I dunno, traveling in the Triangle is weird,” the birdkin grumbled. “The currents, magnetic forces, and even the skies change at random!”
“We rarely venture there, and only after storms wreck ships there,” the orc added.
“And it would be way faster if our ship didn’t have weight in excess,” the birdkin said, glancing at the dragon. The Emperor wondered if he was supposed to understand something, before brushing it off.
“That is not an answer,” Vainqueur replied, his bitterness making him sound raspier.
“Give us a few days, until we find the way out again,” the birdkin said hurriedly. “Then we can reach the pirate city of Port Damné and resupply there.”
“And then you’ll let us go?” the orc asked, pleading.
“Of course not,” Vainqueur replied. “Minionship is for life, and death.”
“I used to think Averagism was the only form of equality,” a revived dwarf muttered. “I stand corrected. Undead Averagism, where all are equal in death, is the purest equality of all.”
“How about we make everyone undead?” another dwarf added. Like his fellows, except a paler skin, he looked as he did in life.
“Patience, my equal fellow. Patience. All comes to Death.”
Obviously, the exchange made the living work harder to reach civilization.
“I tell you, Friend Victor, Wotan will pay tenfold for this humiliation.” Vainqueur hadn’t felt so vengeful since Batling Lavere.
“Actually, who was that guy?” Friend Victor asked. “We were lucky to survive one round, but I’m pretty sure he will come back for another.”
“He is a fomor who styles himself as ‘King’ Wotan.” Vainqueur loathed the title since he had copied it from the dragons. “When they were younger, when fairies and dragons fought one another, my fellow Grandrake taught him his place and took his eye.”
“I assume they didn’t see eye to eye afterward,” Manling Victor joked.
“Ever since he has hunted my kindred so he could practice his vengeance against his target,” Vainqueur said. Once he had disdained the fomor’s victims as handicapped dragons but now knew better. “By using fake princesses called Valkyries, he lured many of my kindred to their death. We nicknamed him Dragonbane, but he retired to his northern domain after the fairies sued for peace…”
”Until Your Majesty declared war on them again,” Victor finished, ”I’m surprised he didn’t break his agreement like Melodieuse.”
“Wotan is many things, but tricky and treacherous he is not. When he gives his word, he abides by it, and he only believes in strength.” Vainqueur remembered the battle, and the pain he felt from the fomor’s lightning. “Stronger he has grown, if he can wound my pristine scales.”
But his previous tactic only worked because of the surprise. The dragon would take him down next time they crossed paths.
“About that, there’s something that bothers me,” Friend Victor said. “He used [Charged Attack] right before using his devastating lightning attack.”
“Like me with my breath,” Vainqueur nodded.
“Yes, like you.”
Intelligence check successful.
“You believe Wotan copied my classes?!” The thought made Vainqueur restless, enough to sway the ship.
“Which is impossible, since as far as I know, you need a soul to gain levels, and the fomors have none.”
“Minion, before I arrived, was it not believed that dragons could not gain levels too?” Vainqueur reminded his servant. As a true detective who had solved Furibon's conspiracies, he knew not to exclude a possibility because it invalidated prior facts.
“Yeah, and fomors can create corrupted [Crests],” Manling Victor added. “Even if it seems difficult to believe… they could have exploited a flaw in the System to empower themselves with classes. If I’m true, then the worst is yet to come...”
“I will not abide by fairies stealing from the dragon-made System,” Vainqueur declared. “I defeated them with or without classes, and I will do it again.”
“We need to return to Murmurin, prepare our defense—”
“No.”
Manling Victor paused. “No?”
“Obviously, Furibon sent Wotan to delay us, so he could corrupt El Dorado as he did with the entire planet Moon,” Vainqueur enlightened his minion on the wider conspiracy. “Us turning back from our quest is exactly what he wants.”
His Vizier remained silent in awe of his master’s deductive power, before putting his hand on his helmet in a sign of respect. “Your Majesty, leaving Murmurin—”
“My minions can take care of themselves,” Vainqueur brushed off his lackey’s worries. “If we cannot expect them to defend my hoard and empire in our absence, then how can we ever feel safe? You have to learn to trust, my dear Victor.”
“Yes, but—”
The sound of a bell interrupted the chief of staff, as the watchkeeper sounded the alarm. “Weresharks! Weresharks in the water!”
Vainqueur glanced over the deck, noticing at least thirty shark fins quickly surrounding the ship from all directions. While Manling Victor and the undead remained calm, as befitting of true minions, the pirate crew panicked.
“The Teeth of Dagon!” the orc pirate panicked. “We’re doomed!”
“Look, we can repel them,” Victor replied, casting buffing spells on himself. “Vainqueur will boil them, I cut them, you nail—”
“They have a [Fisherman] leading them!” the birdkin snarled back at him.
Vainqueur snickered, but much to his surprise, his manling froze in fear. “A [Fisherman]?” he repeated with dread. “How many levels?”
“Twenty!” The birdkin, showing himself unworthy of minionhood, tried to fly overboard and abandon the ship. He barely flew a few meters away before being cut down by a harpoon from below and dragged screaming under the waves.
“And BLEEP!” Victor looked up at his master. “Your Majesty, don’t hold anything back! This is a fight to the death!”
“Minion, why should I fear a fish hunting other fishes?” Vainqueur asked, casually putting his hand in the water and catching a humanoid shark in his fingers. The animal tried to bite his hand but broke his teeth on the dragon’s scales.
“Because they have a capped [Fisherman]!” Victor parried a wereshark’s teeth, as one of the creatures jumped overboard and attempted to bite his head off. By swirling on himself, the chief of staff tossed him overboard. Yet half a dozen blue sharkmen climbed on the ship, assaulting the crew with fangs and tridents.
An enormous, white-skinned wereshark leaped from the waters, making the entire deck tremble. Blasphemous markings covered his hide, and a necklace of fangs glittered around his neck. “You mammals will fear the wrath of Jajambe, chosen of Lord Dagon!” he roared while brandishing the harpoon which killed the birdkin. “I will rip your legs with my steel-cutting tee—”