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A half-dozen shadow goblins cling to various parts of the machinery, chewing on wires, clawing at pipes, and generally trying to cause havoc. From the looks of things, they are too insubstantial and ghostly to rapidly cause damage. My instinct tells me they are not biting wires to rip them apart, but rather to send ‘bad influences’ into the circuits.
I raise my hand and… wait.
Crap.
Something tells me that powerful electromagnetism in here would be an extremely bad idea. I’m really close to the unicorn, too, so my lightning spells will probably go haywire. Nope. I’m not going to be responsible for killing the ship and stranding us out at sea. But I can’t just stand here watching the shadow goblins mess with things.
I search around for something, anything to use as a possible weapon… and find a huge mug of cold coffee that’s likely been sitting here for hours. Shame. Who abandons coffee like that?
Well, it’s not exactly water… but it’s close enough.
I run over to it, earning some hisses and nasty sounds from the shadow goblins. My attempt to conjure my ice blade using old coffee ends up producing a weapon that’s less beautiful glowing blue and more a muddy milky brown. The mug didn’t contain enough liquid to form a full-sized sword, so I’m stuck with the dagger of caffeination.
Hope it gives these little goobers a wake-up call.
It’s not too often something makes me feel slow. These things manage it. Yeah, I’m basically chasing inky ghosts. They’re neither solid nor apparently bound by the laws of physics. As fast as I can make myself be, I end up feeling like an ordinary person chasing a bunch of alley cats on high-grade meth.
Except, unlike alley cats, I am not trying to safely capture them to bring them to the vet. It’s probably easier to stab these things than it would be to get a solid grip on a panicking feline. Slicing at the shadow goblins feels about the same as stabbing a table knife into a bowl of Jell-O.
I zoom around the engine room, half-climbing pipes, diving off consoles, and doing my level-headed best to avoid sticking this frozen coffee knife into anything delicate. It seems to take three good hits to dispel a shadow goblin. Every so often, one of them dies in a single strike… but that just makes me think I’ve already hit that one before. They look identical and they are fast.
Our ‘battle’ spills out into the hallway when they give up on the engine and try to get away from me. I chase them along the corridor to a stairwell leading down. Oh, this is not good. Yeah, I am an immortal being with some quasi-magical powers. Still, the idea of going to the very bottom level of a ship while it’s out in the deep ocean is making me nervous. Truly silly of me, but having that much metal and winding corridors between me and air if something goes really wrong is kinda terrifying. As the saying goes, I’m not afraid of being on a boat. I’m afraid of being trapped at the bottom of a sinking boat. Especially if my teleportation has been rendered moot by the unicorn.
My hesitation only lasts a microsecond.
I chase the small terrors down the steel stairway… and this is where I learn they are not the smartest creatures in the world. Apparently, the little ones wanted to run to a bigger one for help. Only, they led me right to a more dangerous problem: a shadow creature about the size of a gorilla. It’s sitting in the middle of the corridor, studying a large drill. The bastard appears to be trying to make a hole in the bottom of the ship.
Whether or not there is more metal between me and the ocean than a half-inch-thick plate of steel, I don’t know. I really hope there’s a double hull or something and this thing can’t really punch a hole and sink us. One thing I’m not going to do is wait to see if it realizes the drill needs to be plugged into electrical power in order to work.
The shadow gorilla looks up from the drill when I dive at it. Two things happen at the same time: my dagger spears right into its heart—and its fist goes through my brain with a ghostly punch.
Feels like someone poured ice water inside my skull. Wouldn’t call it ‘painful,’ but my body doesn’t want to do anything for a few seconds. During that time, the critter punches me several more times in the chest. That, too, doesn’t hurt as much as leave cold spots. It emits frustrated grunts, perhaps confused why its attacks aren’t having more of an effect on me. They’d probably do something more severe to a mortal. With a boat full of mortals, I really don’t want to find out what.
The little ones that led me down here take the opportunity to pounce and bite the hell out of me. It’s as though I’m being mauled by a small army of hyper-agitated goth weasels. Okay, really big goth weasels… or maybe ill-tempered otters. The contrast between the evil radiating from these things and their apparent inability to cause me actual harm is striking. It’s like I’m visiting Australia—where even the tiny animals really want to kill you but simply can’t.
Upon clearing my mind from the ghost punch, I slice the coffee-blade at the gorilla as fast as I can move my hand, crisscross cutting it six or seven times in a second. It emits a squealing groan of annoyance more than pain, then bursts into a cloud of smoke. The three little ones shriek in fear and run.
Shouts and other noises—like Tammy’s magic and werewolf growls—come from far above me. Great. We’ve got more problems than just these three. I chase the fleeing goobers down, pouncing on one after the other before they can make it back to the stairs.
I look around and don’t see any more. My nervousness at being so close to the ocean inside a giant metal box gets into a fistfight with my need to be absolutely sure there’s nothing dangerous going on here. After a moment, I don’t feel any reason to stay on the very bottom deck.
Chaos has spread over the entire ship. Tammy, Anthony, Kingsley, and random crew appear to be at war with shadow critters. At least my daughter’s ‘life bolts’ won’t harm the ship or any electronics. She’s not holding back. Rapid faint zaps come from the rear portion of the ship, likely Queen Maple doing her part.
An extremely chaotic hour—okay it’s really like five minutes—later, I make it to the bridge and walk in on a giant salt-and-pepper wolf savaging a tiny shadow goblin in his jaws. The mess in the room tells me many more than one of them had been there.
“Sorry I’m late to the party,” I say. “Had a few gremlins below decks.”
The shaggy wolf sits back on its hindquarters, then lurches upward into a standing human. Angus. And he’s naked. At least, I think he is. There’s enough body hair to make me uncertain. I hastily turn away out of politeness.
“Ach, you’re lucky, lass.”
“This is lucky?” I exhale in relief… sounds of warfare are dying down. I think it’s over for now.
“Aye.” He pads over to a tall cabinet and opens it to retrieve a fresh set of clothes. I’ll give him that. The man is prepared. “Yer lucky ol’ Kingsley asked me fer a lift an’ ya didn’t hire some normie.”
I wait for him to dress, then turn back to face him. “Yeah, no kidding. We definitely got lucky that he knew you… and you’re willing to help us out.”
Angus flashes this enormous grin surrounded by wild beard. He looks too much like a Viking who’s just walked off the field of glorious battle. “Tis worth it just fer the stories sae far. An’ tae meet a unicorn. How could I not? All yer kin good?”
