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

jogged up the last few wooden steps behind the Alkyon to find the helmsman and his assistant frantically drawing weapons while trying to keep the ship on course.

She over the railing, observing the neatly ordered rows of tents and a single black cathedral in the distance as they lifted over the walls, and swore violently.

That was just peachy; the pricks of the Dark God were the last things she wanted to deal with tonight.

“Turn th' ship around, right damn now, or yer dead,” she said, pointing her mace at the helmsman, who stared in disgust at her and at the bloody… bits… caught between the flanges on it, before nodding slowly. He grasped the helm, then glanced at his assistant, who grabbed onto a strap secured to the control panel.

Before Lydia could ask what the strap was for, the helmsman twisted the ship sideways, turning the vessel onto its side.

With a terrified scream, she felt the ground go out from under her and she started to slide, headed for the side of the ship. Jian fell with her, while the Alkyon launched themselves from the deck, wings beating furiously as they tried to clear the cover over the bridge. One managed it, but the other was struck by a support, and his wing broke with a loud snap. He fell screaming toward the ground, his companion diving after him.

“Motherfucker!” Lydia growled as she slammed into the railing, glaring up at the helmsman, and noticing for the first time the divots and braces carved into the floor of the deck, which had enabled him to lock his feet into place. The ship turned again, tilting the other way and sending her and Jian, and judging from the crashing and shouting from below, a great many others, careening across the deck towards the far side.

Lydia slammed into the thick wood and groaned as she felt ribs break. The thinner metal on the sides of her chestplate was no match for the weight of the full set driving her against a solid object. The wood creaked alarmingly, and she gritted her teeth, bracing herself as she glared up at the helmsman. The reprobate ignored her and concentrated on his destination, while his assistant grinned and made obscene gestures at her.

“Signal the tower!” the helmsman snapped at his assistant. “Tell them we’ve been boarded, and that we need help.”

“Aye, sir,” the assistant replied, frantically pulling a lever on the control panel, and a pattern of flashes began emitting from a crystal mounted above the deck.

“So much for doing it stealthily…” Jian said quietly to Lydia, nodding up to the helmsman. “I’m going for them; think you can give me a boost?” He grinned, and she nodded as the deck started to tilt again. Ignoring every instinct to grab on, she instead threw her mace at the assistant, then formed a brace with her hands, palm up.

Jian planted his foot, and as they started to slide, she braced his leg long enough to heave him through the air with a pained scream.

Lydia almost blacked out with the pain, sliding and falling across the deck to slam into the far side, several spindles of the railing snapping as she hit them.

Jian flew through the air, teeth bared, as the assistant screamed at the impact of Lydia’s hastily thrown mace slamming into his hip. Both he and the helmsman looked down, just in time for Jian to grab onto the assistant with one hand and stab him with the other.

The assistant was in his late teens, if that, spotty and short, but the obvious pleasure he’d taken in seeing Lydia hurt had removed any thought of mercy from Jian as he gutted the boy, kicking him away from the wrist strap to fall, screaming, into the night. His body hit the railing with an audible crunch, flipping over it and disappearing into the darkness, where his scream hung for several seconds before cutting off abruptly.

“You filthy pirates!” The helmsman swore, yanking the wheel sideways and sending the ship over again, but this time, he flipped a lever as well, and the nose of the ship dipped, faster and faster. “I’ll see you all dead before…” he snarled, as Jian twisted around, stabbing out with his scythe. The tip seemed to dip delicately into the helmsman’s throat, slicing cleanly through the Adam’s apple and back out, bringing a gout of hot red blood that steamed in the cool rain.

The helmsman grunted, his hands releasing the wheel automatically as they reached up for his throat, and Jian jumped, grabbing the wheel and kicking the older man in the face, the impact sending him pirouetting backwards to fall over the railing and out into the night.

Jian dangled from the wheel, looking around the control panel desperately as he struggled to get his feet up into the strange holsters the helmsman had been standing in. He pulled hard, lifting his body up by the strength of his arms alone, curling his legs up close to his chest and flicking them forward. One foot bounced off the brace, but the other landed true, giving him enough of a purchase to get his other foot in as well.

He looked up, the world suddenly oriented differently as the bow of the ship became his horizon, and he twisted the wheel, trying to make the world line up right. He overshot, frantically hauling back the other way, as Lydia shouted at him to ‘pick a goddamn side, ya moron!’.

“Okay… okay, you can do this…” Jian muttered to himself, gazing hopelessly at the control panel. To his eyes, it was a mess of crystals and levers, a handful of smaller dials, and one long dial with a lever next to it. As he frantically tried to remember which lever he’d seen the helmsman pull, he fixated on the only lever that was in a fully ‘up’ position… the one next to the dial.

He pulled it down, or tried to, but it simply gave off a solid