On Astral Tides: From Humble Freelancer To Astral Emperor

Eighty

Landing heavily the breath was knocked out of me. Pain seared through my body as ribs creaked under the impact, my wyrmscale mail completely giving up the ghost and shattering apart. Rolling in the acidic slime which sprouted tentacles to try and drag me under I channelled most of my remaining aether into closing up the worst wound I had suffered.

Shit, if I’d not moved my leg at the last moment I’d have lost it… Even so a large gouge had been bored through my upper thigh, and silvery blood was spilling out, draining my strength. The wound slowly started closing as I poured my aether into it, keeping a strong visual image, even as I struggled free, lines of burns seared into the flesh of my torso and upper arms where the slime tendrils were grasping me. I really hope I’m not bleeding out in the Material. If the girls find me dead … ugh… no time for this…

Shaeula had dropped her wind barrier and caught the screaming spirit. Even as she did so her amber gaze was fixated on me as I tore to my feet, trailing streamers of blood and slime. Tentacles surged towards her, chased by the slime-men, but she paid them little heed, merely flapping one hand at them, a volley of air drills ripping them to pieces.

“Master, are you unhurt-unhurt?” the dagger in her free hand lashed out, cutting down the goop in her path.

“Hardly unhurt…” I grated out, still closing the wound in my leg. Every time I tried to put weight on it I nearly collapsed as it buckled, so I was using a breath of wind to hold me up. “But not out of the fight.” Glaring back at the smirking eye in the ceiling I unleashed invisible air blades. For a moment I thought I had it, until a web of tentacles formed a wall in front of it. They were shredded apart, vile ichor dropping down, but the eye had time to disappear back into the mass of ooze, reappearing on one wall.

“If we don’t get out of here soon we are done…” I looked around. The spirit was struggling in Shaeula’s arms, striving to reach the doll. Behind Shaeula a tide of slime was rising, forming a giant hand. There wasn’t time for Shaeula to react so I launched my spear, which exploded through it, leaving me unarmed.

“Get the spirit to the doll. We can’t defend both!” I cried. Tendrils were trying to cage us in, and towards the exit additional slime-men were forming. The situation was getting more and more dire by the moment, but at least I’d managed to largely close the wound in my leg. Damn, wish I could regenerate like a troll, that’d be super handy about now…

Looking around at the accumulated junk in the lair of this beast I spotted a wooden handle buried in the muck. Reaching in I yanked it free, using small blades of air to sever tentacles that rose to stop me. On pulling it out the handle was attached to a series of bells, carved from some sort of pink stone. Damn, I was hoping for something more… weaponlike…

A slime-man rushed at me and I struck down with the bell-stave, crushing the head. The delightful chimes the bells gave off was quite soothing, but I wasn’t looking for relaxing music right now. The crushed slime-man burst apart into a mass of tentacles, and only a quick slide backwards prevented further injury.

I could create a weapon through imagination, but with the aether I have left it won’t last more than a handful of seconds… using the bells as a club I applied a mini version of Shaeula’s wind barrier to it, turning it into a vicious grinder. Fending off more and more attacks my wind energy was depleting. I once more tried to take out the eye with attacks from multiple angles, blades of sharp wind rushing in like boomerangs, but it again shielded itself and disappeared into the muck, appearing back on the ceiling again.

As I was fighting Shaeula had grabbed both the doll and the spirit, leaving herself open. The spirit stopped its wailing, ruby eyes looking into the lifeless black eyes of the doll, before it tentatively stretched out one hand. Its fingers met the carved ones of the doll, and it let out a truly beautiful smile, childlike and joyful. “At least… I won’t… have to feel… anymore…” it muttered, before vanishing, leaving only the doll behind.

“Behind you!” I roared as a mass of tentacles spiked towards her. Racing over as fast as I could I was still too late, and the writhing snakes of ooze hammered into her, sending her flying away against the wall, where she was splattered by disgusting burning goo.

You… you mother fucker… something snapped in me then and I dived to where the doll had fallen, face down in the muck. Beside it was the knife Shaeula had acquired. I grabbed it, heedless of the acid staining my hand, and raced over towards the still Shaeula. Tentacles flashed in from all directions but with the staff in one hand and dagger in the other I cut my way to her, flashes of light and echoes of music accompanying my charge.

The eye seemed to be jiggling in glee at my rage, sending over more slime-men, but I paid them no mind, purely focused on Shaeula. Reaching her I lashed out with the dagger, cutting her free. As she fell into my arms she opened her eyes, then vomited silver blood. Her scale mail was cracked and charred, scale fragments falling away, yet on quick inspection I couldn’t see any penetrative wounds. “Just… where-where… are you looking?” Shaeula muttered, raising one hand weakly to pat me on the head reassuringly. “Eri will not be pleased you are ogling me-me…”

Relief flooded through me as she managed to crack her joke. Setting her down gently I steadied her as she wobbled. “Looks like we bit off more than we could chew. If things like this are lurking about already, I don’t think much for the survival rate of other chosen prospective Astral Emperors.”

“I… doubt that many are as reckless as you, Akio.” She coughed, another thin trickle of blood leaking from her mouth. Looking around at the mass of slime-men and tentacles that were headed our way she grimaced. “Still, it is better to be lucky than good. Give me that…” she looked at the bells in my hand. Taking it from me she rattled them gently. “Indeed, I can work with this-this.”

Swinging them she channelled wind energy through them, amplifying the effect, sweeping away the oncoming rush of ooze in a gale of shredded black tar. As the way was opened back towards the doll she slapped me on the back with her free hand. “We must… take the doll and flee. This beast is too powerful for us to handle-handle.”

Actually, seeing that last attack, I have an idea… “Can you do that attack you just did with the bells again?” I asked, and she nodded. “It uses much energy, but I can manage it perhaps a couple more times-times.”

Better to be lucky that good. All right then… “I hate that we are letting it one-sidedly batter us. Still, dying here is not worth it. But I’d like to strike back once if I could…”. I whispered something in Shaeula’s ear and she nodded.

Running towards the doll I used my wind to snatch my spear out of the sticky tar where it was buried. The oppression of the enemy Territory and our injuries was mounting up, so it was now or never. Tentacles surged at me from around the doll, but instead I swung to the side, running towards the hideous eye. Gathering what energy I had I leapt at the foe, corroded wyrm-fang dripping vile liquids.

As expected the eye retreated into the voluminous ooze of the ceiling, tentacles lashing at me. My spear hammered into the roof and I let go, tendrils lashing outwards, hammering the shaft into splinters. As I fell Shaeula let out a great cry and ringing the bells she unleashed her wind, scooping out a great mass of the slime, pulling it away from the rest of the vile matter that thronged the roof.

The eye appeared on the falling orb of filth, looking panicked, and a slime-man ran underneath it as it fell. No, I don’t think so… fuck you for hurting Shaeula. That crosses my bottom line.

Sliding low I sliced through the legs of the slime-man, separating it from the ground in a flash of light. As the eye popped out on the torso of the ball of slime, Shaeula attacked again, her Emerald Wind Prison: Second Form, boosted by the bells, surrounding it and caging it in the air, closing in and gradually shredding it apart like an industrial grater.

I grabbed the doll in my free arm, wincing at the pain of my burns. Shaeula was moving towards the exit as she concentrated, her expression intense, amber eyes glowing brightly in the dark. The eye was struggling as the ooze it dwelt in was sheared away. I was getting showered in the crap, so I pulled off the vestments from the nearby mannequin and used it as a cloth shield.

As the winds died down the remaining goo fell towards the ground, the eye blinking wildly. It was then I moved, my remaining wind energy sending me hurtling towards it. Giving it the finger I quickly drove in the dagger, and the eye vibrated, letting out a piercing squeal before exploding.

You have gained in strength. Your level has increased from twenty to twenty-two.

Ether exploded into the air, a huge amount of it, probably the biggest single burst I had seen yet, and as the welcome message and surge of strength entered me I tried to siphon it up. Some flooded towards me, but barely half was absorbed, the rest…

“I have a bad-bad feeling about this. We should flee now, while we still can!” Shaeula warned.

Yeah, this is bad. I mean, really, REALLY bad… the oppressive air of the enemy Territory had not faded, if anything it was growing stronger. Still clutching the doll and the dagger I fled towards the exit. “We are running. Grab anything you can and we’ll get out of here.”

The tentacle mass that blocked the window was surging towards us, but Shaeula’s wind and my new stock of ether was enough for us to start hacking our way through. We suffered numerous small injuries and impacts, but we were making headway… and then the whole building… shuddered.

“Faster!” I croaked out, dagger slicing through the wall of ooze that trapped us in. Looking back I wished I had resisted the urge, as another large eye appeared in the filth, followed by another, and another. Soon the wall was covered by a myriad of baleful eyes, like some nightmarish vision of Lovecraftian horror.

Oh fuck, no way we are beating those. It has pretty much killed us taking out one eye… and even that took way too much luck for comfort. The eyes started vibrating, generating a buzzing that seemed almost like laughter, as the tentacles began to writhe faster, men of slime rising, this time in larger, more demonic shapes…

“I will not-not die here.” Shaeula muttered, swinging the bells, wind roaring around her. “Not until I have climbed to the top of the Seelie and proved my bloodline is as noble as any-any, and not before…” she glanced at me. “Wind, come forth and destroy!”

The wriggling mass in front of us exploded, and the window was visible then, reflecting darkness. Even as the way was cleared tentacles were growing anew, spearing towards us, so with a muttered apology I slammed into Shaeula, using my greater mass to hurl her through the window. Tentacles slashed at me, one piercing home into my lower body, and as it tried to drag me back I let out a pained moan, dagger slashing down to sever it. Closing the wound with aether I strengthened myself and leapt out, still holding the doll that we had struggled so hard for.

Shaeula was waiting for me anxiously outside, and as I tumbled out into the dead, still Boundary she sighed in relief. Her joy was short-lived, however, as tentacles began crawling out of the building after us, tipped with barbed hooks and unblinking eyes.

“Give me a break…” shoving the dagger in the waistband of my ruined trousers I grabbed Shaeula’s hand with my now free one. “I think we need to run…”

********

Several minutes later we were hunkered down in a burned out building, watching nervously as tentacles snaked about the streets of the Boundary, some as large and thick as tree-trunks. Eyes were looking everywhere, but it seemed their senses were not so sharp outside their lair, as they were blinking and leaking disgusting poisonous fluids.

Shaeula was generating a little wind around us to keep us from being heard or smelt. Leaning in close, she whispered to me. “I fear we need to return to the Material now-now. We are separated from our other bodies, and should those… things…” she spat angrily. “… have a means to see the Silver Cord and damage it…” she gestured to where my cord was, not that I could see it unless I really concentrated. “… only death awaits us. There is some risk that we will be noticed as our bodies merge, but to stay… it is death-death.”

“No kidding. What the hell even is that thing, and how can it be so strong?” Praying we would be safe, and that our injuries had not killed our Material bodies, I felt my consciousness slipping, light rushing into my Silver Cord and carrying me away…