City of Fallen Souls: A LitRPG Adventure (UnderVerse Book 3) by Jez Cajiao (fb2 epub reader .txt) 📕

rain, and the clouds of smoke that belched forth from the surrounding buildings, it couldn’t be easy to spot us.

As I watched the skies, I saw occasional movement out in the darkness. and I drew in a deep breath as Hellenica spoke quietly from beside me.

“It’s begun,” she said simply, and I saw the nearest ship suddenly dip, before levelling off again and slowly rotating. It started to head towards us, as lights began to flash on its decks. A signal lamp on the main mast suddenly flared to life and blinked frantically before going dark again, as shouts echoed down from the decks.

From where we stood, we could see reflected flashes of magic and hear occasional shouts, though little else. On the further ship, we were able to see more, as a barrage of lightning spells flashed through the air, making me wince.

“Doesn’t the Lightning backlash with all the rain?” I asked Hellenica, and she sighed.

“It does, and it will injure others than its intended target if they’re unlucky, but my children are gifted in the Air magics, not so much in others. They have learned to use what they are most comfortable with, not what is best. I will have years ahead of me to teach them correctly now, and possibly centuries of breaking bad habits…” she said ruefully, and I grimaced, contemplating how much it would suck to try to break the habits I’d gotten into.

I tended to create or alter spells on the go these days, mainly because I knew Oracle could stop them, or at least lower the chances of them exploding in my face. I tended to do it without thinking, and if I was suddenly told tomorrow that I couldn’t do it any more…

I shook my head as I thought about it for the first time in ages. I needed new spells, and I needed to actually learn for myself, not just absorbing the knowledge from a Spellbook. Understanding why and how things worked was of utmost importance, or one of these days, I suspected that I was going to make a terrible mistake.

We stood there, side by side, as the battle raged above, watching as the ship that was headed for us suddenly veered aside. The vessel dipped out of control for a few heartbeats, before shifting and heading back toward us.

Shouts started to rise from down below in the stairwells, and the faint sound of crashes and clattering suggested that the Guard had found our improvised blockages.

“How long?” I asked Hellenica, who shifted her scrying spell backwards a bit to show the very edge of the ship that was coming in towards us.

“Can you move it to the ship?” I asked her, and she shook her head.

“It’s too complicated a spell. I can see around us for a hundred meters, but only somewhere I’ve been. I’ve never flown aboard such a ship, so I can’t focus in on it.”

“Weird spell,” I commented, and she nodded her agreement. “Can you show us the Guard?” I asked, nodding to the stairwell, and she shifted it, blurring until it zoomed in through the hole in the wall where we stood. I watched a disc of warped air blast past us, dodging between people and then dipping into the stairwell. I froze at the blockage, slowly shifting around to look down, pleased to find that it was pretty solid.

“I can hit the blockage with it, but it would end the spell, and damage the work the Legion did,” she said, sighing.

“How fast is it, this spell?” I asked slowly as a thought came to mind.

“Very.” She frowned at the expression on my face. “Why?”

“And it’d do damage if it hit something?” I pressed, grinning.

“It would, but it’s a mana-intensive spell. If you’re just looking for something to hurt people with, there are much less costly ways…” she said slowly, watching me.

“But could you get it in the building somewhere below us?” I asked. “Then fly it around to hit, say, a leader?”

“Possibly…” She nodded thoughtfully. “It would depend on whether I can find a window or something to get in…”

“Find a window, and I’ll get it blown in for you,” I offered, turning to Arrin, who was getting one of the refugees to eat some food. “Arrin! I need you, buddy.” I called, and he smiled to the man, excusing himself to hurry over to me. I explained what I wanted, and Hellenica showed off the scrying tool, making him grin as he conjured a barrage of ‘Magic Missiles’.

With her spell providing the view from outside of the building, he fired the missiles, slamming them one after another into an old, sealed window a few floors below. The weathered frame exploded inward on the third impact, the remaining three missiles slamming into the room beyond.

I left Hellenica to direct her spell through the damaged window, as she started hunting for a guardsman to expend it on, and I moved back to Augustus, who was gathering everyone up.

“Right, mate,” I started, nodding to him and my people. “I need everyone ready; I don’t know who’s controlling the ship, but it’s all over the place right now, and we might not get a second chance to board her. As soon as it comes alongside, we need to go,” I insisted.

“We’ll be ready, Jax,” was all he said, but the looks he directed around made it clear that it wasn’t simple agreement. He would get everyone onto the ship if he had to throw them personally.

“How long?” he asked, and I grinned.

“A few minutes, if that; it’s heading our way now,” I said, moving back to the hole in the wall and leaving the details for Augustus to work out.

When I reached the opening, I was just in time to see a blur from the scrying spell that revealed an uncomfortably close-up view of a pompous-looking man in very shiny armor, followed by a scream from the floor below as the spell cut off.

“I take it you got