KeeperAbra

Triple-length chapter! Hydration and rations recommended!

SS Dick here. I just wanted to be friends, but she left me just like that. I’m still mopy about it. Damn it.

“Sir Grey.”

Besides, a submarine aircraft carrier? It was kinda stupid how many drones were popping out per second, honestly. Like, how did all of those fit in there? She wouldn’t have been able to fight off the demon wave if she weren’t at least able to bring out 100k+ drones—or maybe each one’s just that powerful? Did she have some sort of electronic warfare system? I couldn’t really get a good look at the fight, and my video logs are just pixels, it’s really annoying.

“Sir Grey…”

Come to think of it, I’m not sure if anyone’s ever brought this up, but the “demons” I’ve seen so far are basically just mimics and death balls. I’m not sure how others see it, but there’s no fuckin’ way they’re related. One’s an actual monster and the other’s more like an alien probe than anything else. Maybe they just grouped the whole mess together into “demon” as a word to mean “will kill you on-sight,” which kinda makes sense, I guess.

“Sir Grey!”

{AH!—Oh, it’s just Sam.}

“Though I owe my life to you, somehow I feel undervalued.”

Sam looks like she just arrived in the Op Room. Looks like she’s with that Billy person from the wyvern riders.

{Sooo, what’s the mission?}

“How perceptive. Although we’ve weathered this wave, we must learn more about the enemy and whether there will be more. Hence, we must survey the wreck of the opponent.”

{We don’t even know how it looks like, though?}

“We’ll take care ‘a’ that.” Texas Red tips his hat. Why’re you wearing a hat indoors? “Anyways, it’s gon’ be one-a-those ‘you’ll know it when ya see it’ types, ain’t it?”

{Aerial recon, huh. I guess I’ll just head in the general direction, then?}

“If you would so please, Sir Grey.”

Sam leaves with a curtsy while Billy tips his hat again. Maybe it’s become part of his biology, which’s why he can’t take it off? Texans are built differently…

***

It took about two hours before I gave the riders the heads up. We arrived when it was nearly sunset.

I slow down, and a stream of wyverns come out of the hangar exits on either side. There’s five flights of five riders each spreading out. Once they’re tired, they’ll come back and another flight’ll replace them.

I kinda feel sad for them, honestly. The last fight basically took out 70% of the wyvern-rider pairs stationed with me. We got reinforcements from the port, but everyone’s tired and stuck in “we just gotta do what we gotta do” mode, no spirit whatsoever.

Meanwhile, the mages downstairs are still mass-producing tac nukes. Marge also found a way to reroute some of my power into nuke-making, so the mages can take breaks now. Still, according to Sam’s calculations, we’ll constantly need 2000 tac nukes on-hand at all times “just in case.” Marge ended up retooling the assembly line and “recruiting” more workers—myself included, so’s why my power’s getting sapped all the time. Even then, Marge is practically whipping the workers to keep at it day-and-night.

… When did I become a floating black company?

A wyvern squadron lands not in the hangar, but on the flight deck. One of the riders unsaddles himself and starts sprinting towards the command tower shouting “Found ’em! We found ’em!”

A’ight, let’s take a look.

***

After just 20 minutes, I finally see it.

If I’ve got a description for it… you know the plus-shaped legs of a rolling office chair? The one with the casters? Yeah, like that, but the casters are gun turrets, and the central hub looks like there used to be something tall there. It’s just twisted metal at the base, now.

The whole thing is about twice the length of my flight deck. Whole chunks of it are gone or molten metal—which I’d like to congratulate myself for. Looks like it’s also painted in that radar-absorptive stuff, so it looks hella foreboding, like some sort of perpetual silhouette at any distance.

Weird that it isn’t actually sinking, though. Probably the only reason why it’s seaworthy is coz of the pure tonnage keeping it from tipping over. My nukes probably also did some unseen internal damage that killed off critical systems—or some smart shit like that, I don’t know, man. Could just be it’s sturdier than it looks and it could’ve taken more nukes if it wanted to.

“Sir Grey, we must send a team to investigate. As one of the most experienced here in labyrinth conquest, I will go with my personal guard, yet I would like to request additional marine escorts nevertheless. Major Billison will also provide aerial support, rest assured.”

Ah, she means my marines?

{Sure, but—who the hell’s Major Billison?}

“My feelin’s a-hurtin’.”

By the wall of the Op Room, Billy tilted his hat low so that his eyes wouldn’t be seen.

Ain’t no rider cry—was probably what he was thinking. What a dramatic guy…

***

My heart and name are gold. I am Aureos, escorting the Princess into the depths of yet another alien ship.

Our mission is to discover the nature of the enemy. Up until yesterday, the only demons that the world has ever known were a small catalog of strange, hostile creatures, and then those airborne death spheres which my kind so hate, but have never appeared this frequently.

Only we dragons may rule the sky! And—possibly Sir Grey, if Madame Margarita’s project pushes through.

Just earlier today, Sir Grey engaged in a deathly duel with this very ship we are to explore. The Princess divulged this to me: though there have been hostile spirit ships in the past, none of them had ever been identified as a demon ship.

This ship, by all standards, cannot be anything other than demonic.

We approach it by fast boats, piloted by Sir Grey’s marines, and as we got closer, the visage of this ship… loomed. There is no awe—only fear. Its black coat swallows all light, and its hull is made of angular panels and seamless joins rather than any elegance or craftsmanship.

I still stand by my opinion that wooden ships are better than metal ships. They just aren’t the same.

We enter through a blasted portion of this demonic floating fortress, right underneath a gun battery larger than my one-bedroom (with kitchen, storage, and spare guest room) house in the royal capital. I suspect it is not even the largest armament here.

Such cramped quarters make my hidden wings itch to be freed. Alas, I must protect my rider.

Thankfully, we are not alone this time. In front of us are five of the Princess’s personal guard, consisting of three combat and two support members.

Though I say “support,” even the healer is a force to be reckoned with.

I once sparred with her, and she simply kept healing her injuries. She is not afraid of pain, and because of which, she can execute such tactics as sacrificing a limb.

“No, no, it’s okay, coz I can regrow them. See?”

Scary. For such a spectacle, she is either affectionately or fearfully—depending on your camp—referred to as “Liza Tail.”

Apparently, the Healers’ School encourages such type of combat among their healers. The Healers’ School requires a different kind of healing, I say.

Beside her is the one called “Cross Quarter,” who—somehow—also counts as a support member. I have never seen a crossbowman fire so fast, nor have I seen one regularly use his weapon as a club. His draw strength is to the point that he is fully capable of ripping a person’s spine from his body if they dare think that crossbowmen are easy prey at close range.

Also, because his bolts carry magic, he has formed a style of using them as improvised stiletto daggers, with such varying effects as exploding or paralyzing the enemy. Please, someone reassign this man to a more apt job.

Meanwhile, the three combat members also do not make sense to me.

One is an engineer—I think. They call him the “Ninjaneer,” and I am annoyed by the name, as it is very apt. Even now, I cannot see him, but he is here somewhere. I just know it.

I do not understand why he is a combat class. He is normally in charge of dismantling traps and setting his own. His sword skills, per se, are merely above average. Actually, even his knife, gun, bow, spear, magic, horse-riding, and wyvern-riding skills are all merely above-average. He also speaks several other languages, but not to an astounding degree.

… Alright, yes, he is quite talented in that light, but he is still a magical engineer. Magicians and engineers be warned, this man will analyze your technique and reverse-engineer it in the most defiling way you will ever see before you are ended by a chaotic reflection of your own magic. Worst of it all is that you would never see him actually do it.

The next member is a combat mage by the alias of “Account Nee Spears,” an alias for which there is a complicated history.

Before her charge as a combat mage, she was an accountant at the Royal Treasury, located near the White Castle. I have actually seen her many times on my errands, and though I know that I had wished for her station in life to improve—her stress had been palpable in her eyes in that late office night—I did not expect her to become a combat mage.

As a mage, she is unexpectedly gruesome. She fights with a spear, yet wherever she steps, spears of whatever element she fancies jut out towards her enemies. It simply so happens that these spears seem to appear at knee-level, impaling her enemies nearly along the whole length of their bodies, practically displaying them in the air like a certain ancient count.

There was a small debate between calling her “Count” and “Account,” but everyone settled with “Account” as addressing non-nobles by a noble rank is illegal.

Herelast, but not hereleast, is the famed “Glass-Swords Man.” He is so known, as all swords are made of glass to him—including his own. His strength is just that much of an abnormality. Hence, on his back is always a wicker basket filled with swords of every kind. I am concerned for his back, but he says “Better than an office job, I’m tellin’ ya.”

I hear he is attempting to learn basic blacksmithing in order to repair his swords by himself. I also hear that the royal armorer is still expecting a certain debt to be paid for piling repair costs. Maybe his strength was a curse, after all.

Incidentally, the office job he was speaking of was at the Royal Treasury. That makes two former employees of the Royal Treasury making up the Princess’s personal guard. What kind of place is the Royal Treasury that it produces these sorts of warriors?

***

The corridors of the ship are much wider and taller than Sir Grey’s, but also abnormally smooth.

Sir Grey’s corridors have pipes, cables, fixtures, and reinforcements every which way, with some method to the madness. Here, however, there is nothing. Absolutely nothing. It is all smooth walls and floors.

The crossbowman fires a green-glowing illumination bolt, which hits and bounces along the floor, stopping some 50 yards away. It does not seem to have hit the end of the corridor.

We proceed cautiously. Although there are no recesses in which enemies may hide, there is no telling whether the walls themselves may part and unleash a monster upon us.

“Above!” Ninjaneer shouts. I do not see him, but I must trust him.

Before I could act, bolts of magic shoot up into the ceiling from the floor around Nee’s feet. Something falls down, which Cross bashes with his crossbow and Glass cuts a few times with a sword. Both the sword and crossbow survive, but what was clearly a mimic does not.

Sir Grey calls them “mimics.” We have not had a clear classification of demons before, and so we call them mimics now.

“Do mimics simply favor living in ships? Sir Grey had had quite a few before our return to Merika,” I remark.

“Whatever they favor, it seems that this ship has a propensity to accommodate them,” answers the Princess.

Above us, there is an opened hatch in the ceiling, of a design which slides horizontally and disappearing into the surrounding frame. Throwing up a summoned ball of light, it bumps against the end of the recess. There seems to be another hatch, but it remains shut. The mimic had been caught between two hatches. Whatever is behind the second hatch is left to our imagination. We hadn’t the time to try and open it, anyhow.

“Let’s carry on.”

On the Princess’s orders, we push on.

***

Grey here—I mean, Dick here. Wow, the name’s rubbing off on me.

So anyway, I’m scared.

—Kill me … please …

I’ve been hearing that on the telepathy channel for a while now. Looks like it’s not exclusive to aircraft carriers, but that ain’t helping me right now!

— … Years … So many … years …

{Maaarge, I’m scared—get over here!}

Marge perks up from behind a pile of schematics and research notes in her lab.

“Huh? What’s going on, Grey?”

{I’m hearing voices and I need someone to hear them with me, too!}

“Huh—HUH? No, wait, stop!”

{— … Make it … end …}

Marge dashes over to hide behind Sophia, while Sophia quickdraws a cross and points at the closest PA speaker, reciting what I could only assume to be a Mexican anti-witchcraft incantation.

… Yeah, no, I’m just being mean at this point.

{S-sorry about that. But, seriously, I’ve been hearing this for the past 10 minutes and I’m about to lose my mind.}

Marge peeks from Sophia’s shoulder.

“D-don’t do that again!—but that’s sort of intriguing, I’ve never heard a suffering spirit ship before… Can I assume that it’s the voice of the crippled ship outside?”

Huh, if it’s science, there’s nothing to fear for her, huh?

{Probably? I’d be asking for some existential purging if I got nuked a couple of times too and somehow survived, so I guess that’s him?}

“I don’t know, that doesn’t quite sound like it…”

Marge cups her chin and scratches her head.

“I think you should let Bestie know about this.”

{I was gonna do that anyway, but thanks.}

— … kill … me …

Why do y’all talk with ellipses? The heck.

But yeah, sure thing, dude. I’ll scuttle ya in a bit.

— … Finally …

Ohjesuschrist, he heard me. Let’s just pretend I didn’t hear anything~

— No … please …

***

I send a radio message to Scrue, and I get an “Aye aye!” followed by a bunch of gunfire over the radio. They should be holding down the breach where Sam and her crew entered. I didn’t think there’d be trouble if they were just waiting around, honestly.

{… Everything alright over there?}

“Aye, Cap’n Dick! Jus’— crit’ers a-lots like y’demon bilgerats!”

… I’m not sure I got anything past “critter” but I’m assuming it’s a bunch of resident mimics. Do mimics have a thing for mysterious ships?

{S-sure, just get the message safely to Sam, okay?}

***

Princess Eagle Samantha Burn—DIE, DEMON—yes, sorry, Burnheart at your service.

We are tired of mimics.

True to Sir Grey’s description of them, they sometimes assume various, inconspicuous forms. Normal persons wouldn’t suspect a thing.

However, I have always ensured to surround myself with extraordinary personalities.

The mimics’ disguised forms shimmer slightly, or have certain details wrong. Among the seven of us who take a gander, at least one will realize that something is amiss.

Liza approaches a display figure. “Ohh, a 10:1 scale model of a dragon—”

“—That is not how our scales appear! Die for your poor rendition, mimic!”

Aureos is passionate about his kind, and incinerates the demon with a light breath of dragon fire.

This all reminds me of the makings of a labyrinth, in many respects, but I must say that it is quite lacking. The most ancient labyrinth in Merika, in the far-flung marches of Floridale, is replete with pitfalls and murder corridors. Its monsters are also powerful, becoming stronger as one approaches the final, 100th floor.

I have never given it a thought, but now the impression I get of labyrinth monsters is that they are… parasites.

They merely infest the labyrinth, and are not part of it. That’s how they appear to me now, as we evade and dispatch mimics wherever which way. Some places appear to have entrapped and caught these monsters, while others are hallways of terrifying defenses that match Sir Grey’s own hallway turrets—but only in function, not design.

This place is alien. The halls are as tall as three men, the doors are circular, and the defenses are like lightning rods that emit some kind of rapid force magic, almost like bullets. Our own defensive magic is, thankfully, a match, but if we let up even once, a single one of those can blow off a limb.

Should we be thankful that it was Liza’s arm that was blown off? Her healing abilities being able to heal any of us just as effectively as herself besides, I am sure that her pain tolerance is a magic in its own right.

There is gunfire from the hallway that we had left behind. They are the familiar repeating firearms of Sir Grey’s, and so I call the party to stop and turn back to meet the marines.

They arrive with multitudes of light beams illuminating the hallway. As they come into view, I notice that each is ragged and in dire need of endurance biscuits. I instruct Aureos to pass them some of our enhancement rations, and the messenger, a young man, finally speaks.

“Cap’n Grey says th’ship’s wants t’die.”

“Some words there are blended together and somehow also circumventing the intended meaning, please say it again.”

“Cap-p-princess ma’am, uhhh…”

He retrieves a note from his pocket and passes it to me. It says: “Yeah uhh remember when I heard that aircraft carrier’s voice? Yeah, so I can hear this one’s voice too, and it’s been pretty suicidal for a while. So I guess wrap it up ASAP and we’ll scuttle it? I’m going nuts. Really.”

Hmm. Concerning.

I turn to my guard. “Our schedule has advanced. Sir Grey intends to scuttle this wreck, and I agree. We must locate the possible core and collect what we can.”

With that, we leave the marines behind. They would find their way back, they told me.

***

There is, perhaps, no louder announcement of a room’s importance than the size of its door. In this case, however, it is neither the height nor width of this door that is striking, but the thickness of it.

I can cleave wild dragons in halves, but even this door is thicker than their bodies. We are lucky to find it opened, rolled away like the entrance to a dead man’s robbed tomb.

Inside is darkness. After Sir Cross fires an illuminary bolt, it is clear that is a circular chamber with the span of a small galdiatorial arena, about 100 feet across. The center dips into a shallow depression, and there are steps and step-like shapes leading down to it. Might this have been a war room?

The illuminary bolt bounces against the wall on the other side, casting shadows and silhouettes. We all scatter different light spells to gain a wholer sense of the chamber.

The moment we do, we identify the enemy.

“Everyone! Counter-tentacle monster formation!” Sir Jeer shouts from somewhere. I cannot see him, but I trust him.

In the middle of the chamber is a black, writhing mass worthy of motherly jests. Its motions are much like a mimic, but it no longer takes the form of some inconspicuous object, as if it has nothing left to be ashamed of. Its tentacles branch out to smaller tentacles, which branch even further, to such a small size that their movements are like the blur of a ventilation fan in front of its body. I fear that, ultimately to their tips, it may have more feelers than the Southern Army may have bullets.

We are in what could only be the command hub of this ship. If we are to discover its secrets, we must kill this monster.

But, this… Un-mimic—can we kill it?

Our squad is meagerly spread out, but only enough to allow for personal evasive maneuvers. We must remain in reach of each other’s supportive distance, or else we cannot survive its saturation or paralysis attacks, whatever form those may take.

Of course, only a few of us here can actually deploy magic barriers, and only for personal defense. There is a reason why I elected not to take aboard a defensive mage for my personal squad.

“Aureos! Cross! Unleash hell!”

I shout my orders, and Cross throws some of his bolts like war darts. They explode as they hit the Un-mimic. There is a shrill cry from the beast. It wants to strike back, but the explosions knock it about.

At the same time, Aureos draws a magic circle in the air and charges it with his draconic energy. By the time the last explosive dart lands on the Un-mimic, Aureos unleashes focused dragon fire.

He has been practicing. His fire rivals that of the death spheres’ light magics. It is focused into a pillar, and I cannot feel the heat—surely evidence that there is not a speck of mana being wasted. With this power, maybe, we could take Washington all on our own.

However. Even so. Tentacles and feelers lash towards us like bullets.

Many of the tentacles are blown away by Glass. He heaves the sword in his hand to cut across the air faster than the air could recognize that it has been cut. The sheer pressure and speed makes the sword glow, and then ultimately—explode.

The shockwave diverts or destroys most of the tentacles. The steel shrapnel cut through the monster.

However, it is not enough, and Glass requires time to recover. His arms are bleeding, torn asunder by his own strength. Instead of in pain, however, he simply looks depressed. It must be hard to be useless immediately after doing the one thing you are hyper-skilled in.

In one and one-half stride, Liza skids to a stop beside Glass and flash-heals his wound. The light blinds Glass for a while, and so he is now out of commission for a different reason.

Despite his defense, not all of the tentacles are deflected. Madame Nee summons her own pikes from the floor and meets each feeler head-on. She is straining, apparent that she had never had to summon such pikes in a hundred-multitude quantity, needle-thin quality.

Nevertheless, she is smiling—she is growing. As the monster adds another feeler to the barrage, so too does she summon another needle from her feet. It is as if her hair has become killer, but I am confident that she will not gain the ability to manipulate her hair similarly. Maybe.

“Is that it! Is that all you can do!”—I could not hear her ensuing frenzied laugh above another of Cross’s explosive bolts. Really, she was never meant to be an accountant.

Although the defense is holding, I find myself targeted. I bring my guard up and duck slightly, letting a tentacular whip slide across my blade on its own, cutting it with its own motion.

Several more come for me like spears. I point my sword towards them and stride left, gently knocking them away.

“Princess!” Aureos calls to me. “I wish to apply Sir Grey’s Blessing upon this creature!”

“Fool!”

Even in the midst of my evasions, I could not help but to slap him on the head with the broad of my sword. What is this man thinking to use a Margic bomb indoors?

I couldn’t have foreseen that my tomfoolery would cause Aureos to stumble into Liza, who then stumbled into the path of a hundred needle-feelers.

Naturally, she is impaled a hundred times, but the feelers retract just as fast. She wavers for a moment, but flashes momentarily, then turns to give me and Aureos a dirty look.

“The two of you, take this seriously!”

She says that while being stabbed another 20 times. Of course, there is a hyper-concentrated magical barrier around her head, and the feelers are bouncing off of it.

Cross brings his crossbow to bear this time, and fires a mana-virus bolt. It hits the monster, but nothing happens for a short while. I parry and evade further attacks, and then the mana-virus takes effect.

The monster’s motions freeze, and it begins attacking itself. It pierces and flays itself many thousands of times, tearing off its whole outer skin, only to show… all the same skin.

It resumes its attacks.

It seems to have physically torn away the mana-virus.

However, all is well.

“Princess! I’ve analyzed the monster!”

The Ninjaneer’s words ring true to my heart.

“Very good! How shall we conclude this!”

I cut four tentacles that were about to draw an X and thereafter draw me into four.

“Princess, according to the patterns of mana movement that the mana-virus munition revealed, we have to absolutely destroy each and every cell of its body!”

… Somehow, I am only mildly disappointed. I am not tired at all, as the fight has been relatively slow, like a well-paced jog around the royal gardens, but Sir Grey issued us the rather concerning information that we are inside a spirit ship, and that it may yet live.

However, what a troublesome opponent. Each and every cell of its body must be destroyed. Why could it not be an opponent with a constantly-shifting core, I wonder? Those are always fun to play with.

I cut twenty tentacles attempting to create an asterisk out of my viscera.

“Sir Jeer, have you secured what you can?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Then, I will give you the opportunity to reveal yourself.”

“… Thank you, dear Princess.”

I cut two hundred tentacles desperately attempting to hoist me up into an unroyal position. Now that you have attempted such, my blade shall not stay!

“My dear followers!” I give my order and spirit’s fire. “Let this room become desert and tundra! Volcano and whiteout! Nothing but ash and snow! Ah, but take care not to sink this ship.”

I hope my last remark was heard. I do not think this ship is so flimsy that it cannot withstand my subordinates going amok, but I did not think that I would somehow find myself trusting in the designs of the enemy.

The first to attack is Madame Nee. She insists on drinking from three mana potions at once with straws while launching javelins of wind and ice at the monster, all the while defending herself with needle pikes coming out from the floor to counter the incoming feelers. The pikes have sheen, and it is apparent that she is twisting the metal beneath her feet to make them. Before now, I have only seen her twist rock, not metal.

Fierce her attacks may be, she cannot possibly outpace the monster’s regeneration, but—her attacks are not unguided. She is aiming for the bases of the tentacles connected to the main body, which are under a hundred in number. Destroying just one base will deprive the monster of many hundreds to thousands of feelers, reducing its attack capability.

Cross and Aureos do not lag behind. Now that Madame Nee has taken the offensive, her own role in defense is slightly reduced. Several feelers dart towards her. Cross’s own bolts dart towards the feelers. He is holding one mana-virus bolt in each hand and precisely meets their tips against the approaching feelers. The other feelers stab into him, but not very far.

The feelers then panic and retreat. Liza comes up behind Cross and flash-heals him, patting him on the back, saying “See! This fighting style’s so much more fun!” to which Cross nods.

On the opposite flank, Aureos has formed an… elliptical magic circle? A magic ellipse?

“Aureos, you fool, have you not learned anything in geometry class?”

“Princess! With all due respect, but this is very difficult!”

Indeed, he is straining with all his draconic might—or as much of it as he could access in human form—in restraining the magic ellipse.

… Wait, an ellipse has two foci. Why would he need to two pivots for magical energy?

Two appendages grow out of his back. For a moment, I think that they are his wings, but upon looking closer, they are draconic arms, with talons harder than mana-infused steel.

Ah, I see. He needs two pivots as that is how he controls them. Why not use two circles, then? This fool…

He is cackling while smacking away incoming tentacles. It seems that those talons also have Fire Touched magic on them.

Actually, Madame Nee is also cackling, and so is Madame Liza. Cross does not speak very much, but it is as if his muscles are cackling for him—wait, no, that is the sound of him being stabbed repeatedly.

I cut away the feeler stabbing him. He looks at me, displeased. Liza, nearby, is also displeased.

It seems we have entered a new, depraved stage to this fight.

At the same time, Glass finally is on his feet once more, rubbing his eyes.

“Fuckin’ hell, I thought I’d gotten used to seeing that coming! Thanks but damn you, Liza!”

“Sir Glass! Use all your power to deal damage to that monster!”

He looks up to me, confused, but within a second, clarity returns to his eyes. He surveys the surroundings, and is mildly frightened by the other threes’ multi-stage cackling. He looks to me again with a pleading frown, but I make sure to let my own frown be known, and I solemnly shake my head. I am sorry, but our fellows are lost until this battle is over.

Perhaps with the goal of ending this battle as soon as possible in mind, he takes javelins from the basket on his back and hurls at them at air-breaking speed against the monster. The force is explosive, and hypercavities form in the wake of the javelins’ travel.

Although we must destroy each and every cell, it seems that this massive physical trauma it is being dealt is weakening its ability to fight.

Incidentally, Sir Glass is throwing at 10% of his maximum strength—or at least, he can now throw ten times before Madame Liza must heal him. I believe the actual strength to be about 30%. As expected, muscles and basic arithmetic do not mix.

“Sir Jeer! Now is the time!”

My shout does not go unanswered. Portals appear on the ceiling and floor—two pairs, in all. Something drops from each portal on the ceiling, and it falls through their correspondent on the floor—thus falling through the ceiling, and through the floor again. There is a low cackling. Why do my followers like to cackle?

“Just a ti~ny application of acceleration magic, and—”

With Sir Jeer’s narration, the falling objects eventually become a blur, then a blue glow, and then, pure light—two pillars of light on either side of the chamber.

A portal opens from the wall behind us, its foot a good distance above our heads. Intricate layers of circles lift from its face and begin to move, turning, as if finding the perfect place for it to fit.

And when they do, they all collapse back into the portal in the wall.

“Good day—and good night.”

With Sir Jeer’s bid, the two pillars of light disappear, and reappear over our heads. All sound is silenced. The monster is merely judged.

***

With fire, metal, ice, and thunder, we annihilated the remains.

… uncovering the ship’s spirit.