My Own True Calling 53 - Don't (Patreon)

I don’t know what I was expecting from the leviathan attacking Jira’s ship, but a literal fucking dinosaur was not it. The sailors around us hurl spears and harpoons at the creature as it breaches, but I’m too busy trying to wrangle Nipper away from his attempt to solo a creature hundreds of times bigger than him.

“Stop squirming you dumbass, I’m trying to stop you killing yourself!”

Do you have any idea how hard it is to restrain a hyperdimensional worm creature that can tunnel through its own literal wormholes? That’s right, impossible. The only thing keeping this adorable little moron out of the water is the fact that he listens to me.

Unfortunately, while some of the weapons find purchase in the leviathan’s hide, they don’t seem to slow it down or even particularly bother it as it sinks back beneath the waves. Shit. Gonna have to lure it out again, but it’s probably not going to keep falling for the same trick over and over again.

“Hey you!” I shout to a sailor next to me, grabbing for his harpoon. “Gimme that!”

Should have thought of this the first time, but whatever. He hands it over without much fuss, aside from mumbling something about his name—as if I care—and I start building another magic signal. This time, I use the “stay away” signal, since it’s not like our dino friend knows how to read the stuff I’ve trained Nipper on anyway.

Beads of sweat trickle down my neck as I pour energy into the ball of pure magic, then brace myself as I feel the monster responding below. Pulling back the harpoon, I wait until just the right moment. When it crests the waves, I tighten my grip and put all my strength into an [Explosive Throw] that makes the sailors around me flinch from the force of its shockwave.

The harpoon cuts through the air as if it was fired from a tank cannon, flashing across the distance in the blink of an eye to land—

Ten feet to the leviathan’s left—fuck! Vi makes that look way easier. It doesn’t help that the monster came up at an angle instead of straight from below this time. While my missed throw sends up a huge spray of water, the sailors’ do much better with their own second volley. Their weapons aren’t hurting it enough to do any lasting damage, but it’s still learning.

I’m a little lightheaded after all that, but there’s nothing for it but to try again.

“Vi, I need your—”

“No,” she interrupts before I can even finish. “I’m not letting you throw my spear into the ocean.”

Spoilsport. Okay, fine. We probably only have another one or two shots at this before it catches on. What else, what else?

While I’m trying to think of some way to kill this stupid dinosaur, a vortex of water forms ahead of the ship. Jira steers us away from it, but I can sense the monster in the center of it. Looking closely, I can even see its massive crocodile jaws poking out, as if it’s sucking all the water up.

“The fuck is it doing now—?”

The ship lurches just in time, as a concentrated beam of pressurized water nearly cuts it clean in half. Instead, thanks to Jira’s evasive maneuvering, the beam punches a hole through the stern before cutting upwards, tearing a gash in the ship and sending the unlucky sailors in its path careening through the air to splash down hard in the distance. The lucky ones in its path just die instantly, vaporized by the sheer force of the blast.

Half a dozen sailors dead, just like that. Before I even have time to blink. All the nervous excitement from a moment ago drains out of me, and something snaps as I go cold.

“Little Baddie, if you have a plan to lure it away, now would be a good time!” Jira calls out urgently.

Her voice sounds small and distant, as if I’m hearing it through someone else’s ears, or on an old recording. The leviathan is still in the water, as much a beacon to [Astral Sense] as our body must be to it. The mana candles don’t compare—not in the way that matters. They are raw, unprocessed—like a mountain of lettuce next to a big juicy slab of nutrient-dense meat.

Even if they are thrown overboard, there’s no question which the predator chasing us will follow. It has to die, or we do. There’s no other solution.

Before giving it another thought, a [Flash Step] takes me to Vi’s spear, and with it in hand a second one takes me overboard.

“Maev!” Talla’s shrill and panicked voice is the last thing I hear before frigid water drowns out all sound.

I frantically scramble to use every skill and spell I have to keep us from dying. [Burning Innervation] and [Smoldering Embrace] to keep us from freezing, [Ignite Spirits] to draw power from everyone on the ship, a [Guiding Light] anchored to the ship so that we don’t get lost—

The water flash-boils around us—a [Flash Step] narrowly taking us out of the path of the leviathan’s jaws. The water makes it more difficult to move swiftly through the astral plane, limiting the spell’s effectiveness. A [Curse of Burning Rage] ensures that the monster stays focused on us, but fighting underwater is—

Impossible! Why did Maggie jump overboard?! I’ve always worried that she’d get us killed one day, but not like this. She had the right idea luring it out for a decisive [Explosive Throw], so why abandon that strategy so suddenly?

I don’t have time to question it—the sea monster is already circling around for another attack. My only advantage—if I can call it that—is that the monster is so large and so fast in the water that it can’t make precise maneuvers once it commits to something. That hardly matters when I’ll die if it so much as clips me with a fin—or that long prehensile tail.

The monster charges us, jaws open, and I have to act fast to avoid getting eaten. Operating more on instinct than rational thought, I cast [Thermodynamic Conversion] to transform some of my body heat and the flames surrounding me into kinetic energy to support my swimming. It still feels like getting hit by a truck, but the water blunts the impact somewhat. It also slows me down, but the sudden movement is enough to squeak past the enraged leviathan.

The whorls and eddies caused by its passage spin us around uncontrollably, but I stay focused on what matters. If we can’t move, we’re dead. The spell needs to be better, more controlled. I can’t do that as well as Maggie can, but desperation is a strong motivator, and I’ve worked on some of the same exercises that Talla taught us.

Casting skills and spells are like flexing a phantom limb, and controlling them more precisely is like trying to isolate a particular muscle or group of muscles. Like bending a pinky or ring finger without moving any others, or wiggling a single ear.

I’ve practiced with magic enough that I can feel the difference between one-off spells and those that are sustained and channeled, but forcing one to behave like the other is difficult. Trying to learn a new skill in the middle of a life-or-death fight goes directly against Draga’s teachings, but so does jumping into the water against a sea monster—as [Remember the Lessons] helpfully informs me.

If you’re in the water against something like a river maw, my best advice for fighting it is: don’t. Flee, play dead, or pray to the Goddess for salvation.

In the absence of those options, I instead try to hold my [Thermodynamic Conversion] spell open as a constant force instead of a single explosive effect. My vision swims and our body feels like it’s being crushed in a vice as the spell sends us hurtling towards the monster, but I concentrate as hard as I can on adjusting it, relying on adrenaline, desperation, and the many boosted attributes from the layers of protective spells to assist me.

It’s not perfect—my movements are jerky, the acceleration is inconsistent, and it still feels like we’re being constantly pummeled by a heavyweight boxer—but we have locomotion much faster than swimming. I clutch my spear tight as I dodge another pass, but before I can think about fighting back, yet another issue presents itself.

We need to breathe!

Our attributes have kept us from passing out so far, but I’ve already held my breath longer than I thought possible. We’ve been studying this stuff with Talla, so I know that it’s a combination of Resilience and Will that are allowing me to do this, but it only goes so far. Resilience doesn’t reduce our need for air, just slows down how fast our body shuts down without it.

Now that we can move, I have to get up to the surface to breathe, except—I don’t know which way is up! The salt water stings my eyes, and squinting through it as best I can only shows me hazy bluish depths in every direction—and the monster, of course. It’s a miracle we haven’t lost our glasses, but I’m always careful with those—losing them is another good way to die.

I still have the [Guiding Light] showing the way to Jira’s ship, but it’s long out of sight and I have no idea how far away it is by now—still, it’s something. I wait for the monster’s next charge, then dodge in the direction of the ship. Based on the leviathan’s orientation and the direction of the ship, I make a guess and push myself as hard as I can towards what I hope will be the surface.

If it’s not, we’re going to drown. I can’t hold my breath any longer.

The next few seconds feel like an eternity as I torpedo my way towards something I can’t see, the monstrous jaws behind us slowly closing the gap. My chest heaves, desperately trying to rebreathe the air already in my lungs in a war between instinct and understanding. I know that I’ll drown if I let myself inhale, but my body doesn’t care—it needs oxygen now! The edges of my vision go dark, and my consciousness starts to fade.

I’m not going to make it. I must have picked the wrong direction. This is it, then. The mistake that finally costs us everything. I’m almost at peace with it.

Then we breach the surface with startling speed, actually shooting out of the water and getting at least an entire second of air time. I gasp desperately for air during that second before splashing back down into the water. It’s not enough, and the monster is right on top of me now!

Vi’s trick gives us enough momentum for a longer ranged [Flash Step]. The leviathan’s jaws are snapping closed in the spot we occupied a moment ago, and from here I can see Nipper clinging to its underbelly like a little remora.

I didn’t realize he’d come overboard with us. That’s even more concerning. I can see Maggie making stupid decisions that put us in danger, but Nipper? It doesn’t matter right now—I’ve got another lungful of air and need to make the most of it.

In another moment of desperate innovation, I cast [Slow Burn] on myself. The spell is only supposed to mitigate the need for food and water, but what is oxygen if not another nutrient our body needs to survive? Surely it fits. The spell does not agree, but I am persistent and for a moment I think I can even feel Maggie’s focus behind mine, guiding my metaphorical fingers towards the right threads to pull on.

The world feels like it’s losing color, and it’s hard to stay motivated, but I focus on the pounding in my heart and the adrenaline pumping through my veins. I’ve never had to cast and maintain so many spells at once before, and most of them are being overdrawn in some way or another. I know that my mind is being clouded by magical strain, but for now I can direct all of that negativity at the monster trying to kill us. I can drown when it’s dead.

It comes around for another charge. Slow and lazy, playing with its prey. It knows as well as we do that we stand no chance, and it’s not bothering to exert itself.

No, wait—I can make out a faint reddish cloud trailing from it. It’s bleeding?

There’s not enough time for me to figure out why as it comes at us again. This time, I brace myself to strike back. I feint left, expecting the monster to adapt to our newfound ability to move underwater, and I’m rewarded as the leviathan tries to correct its course while I instantly reverse our momentum, turning our mobility advantage into a single opportunity.

This is it. If I can’t make this attack count, I’m not sure we have enough energy to keep fighting. My hands shake and my fingernails have long-since turned blue from both a lack of oxygen and all the body heat I’ve been turning into motion. I’ve kept us alive so far, but only by slowly killing us piece by piece.

On a hunch, I maneuver around to the source of the bloody cloud, where I find Nipper neck-deep in the leviathan’s hide. Where all of the crew’s spears and harpoons failed, Nipper has given us an opening in the monster’s hide.

I level my spear and charge forward, signalling Nipper to return to our shoulders, then slam my spear as deep into the creature’s flesh as I can.

The spear all but disappears into its body, and it lets out a roar that shakes my bones as it thrashes in pain. I hold onto the spear for dear life while the leviathan thrashes, rolls, and even breaches the water in an attempt to crush us between it and the surface of the water.

Its struggles knock the wind out of me, but I don’t just stay idle while that’s happening. With every moment the monster tries to struggle, I channel [Pyrobolt] through the opening we’ve created, cooking the monster alive just like Maggie did with the giant bat.

After what feels like forever, the monster’s struggles slow, then stop entirely. It releases a low, long groan and then, with a final shudder, dies at last.

Unfortunately, I have no idea how deep it dove during that struggle, but if the pressure headache behind my eyes is any indication, we’re not very close to the surface.

I’m out of strength, and without the leviathan to focus on I can’t muster up the energy to care. It’s almost a relief when my body gives out and my consciousness fades. My last thought as the cold depths take me is that at least I don’t have to experience the pain of drowning.