LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 54: Raid!
Esstrey wakes from her fishbowl to the sounds of footsteps, and senses a warm body rapidly running towards her office from the direction of the black market. It runs with a limp, and slows done as it reaches her doorway. A soldier stands in it, looking as a massive mermaid groggily climbs out of a small aquarium, and approaches him while grabbing a pack with some sort of gem in it. Blood is leaking from his side, but he doesn't seem to care much for the wound.
"L-lady liaison! We're under attack by an unknown force! We need to-" An arrow pierces him through the neck, and he falls to the floor, drowning in his own blood. That's odd, Esstrey doesn't sense anyone else in the hallway. She goes to the poor soldier, and rips the arrow through his neck. As she does so, a large group of unknowns appear at the start of the hallway, with a few still coming down the stairway. An [Elf] woman dressed in green with a bow reloads her weapon, and a [Dwarf] with metal plates as thick as the door behind Esstrey stands next to her.
Another arrow flings in Esstrey's direction, and she uses her arms to block them from reaching any vitals. At first the duo staring at her relax a bit, but when they see Esstrey throwing away the arrows like toys they tense again. Esstrey's bloodsense recovers, and she can detect the full group now. A [Human] man with a greatsword is with them as well, along with a woman who seemed to have been the source for the nullifying effect, a caster if her robes are any indication. Before they all line up ready to fight, Esstrey slams into the wall at her side, and a figure becomes visible as she barely dodges out of the way. A female [Wolf-kin], armor and weaponry indicating a rogue that planned to get behind Esstrey.
"That's a big fuckin' lass, dibs on the head." The dwarf twirls his axe at the mermaid, boasting in the face of the creature.
"HISSSSS KRRRRRR" A hiss followed by a clicking noise is all the response the dwarf gets from the mermaid, an unearthly noise that shouldn't be possible to be made with the vocal range of mermaids. She lifts the assumed corpse of the soldier, and it shudders for a moment. Blood stops leaking from the man, and he begins looking around in shock.
"Tell the paranormal division to burn evidence and evacuate on my orders." The mermaid doesn't actually have the authority to hand out such an order, but whether people will care about that is up to fate now. Another duo of arrows fly down the hallway, Esstrey moves her body to shield the soldier, one arrow lands in her tail while the other gets slashed out of the air by her shovel.
Esstrey fires back, her bolt uncaring for where it flies in this narrow hallway, the mass of the shot lands squarely on the dwarf, who staggers despite his heavy armor. The swordsman moves in for a stab, but almost gets his head squashed like a pumpkin for the effort as the back end of the crossbow almost hits him. Esstrey moves to finish him off, but gets put on the back-tail as a barrage of magical attacks hits her. Icicles pierce her tail, lightning makes her scream in pain, and the fireballs are ignored as the intense heat makes the hallway smell slightly like roast fish. The rogue goes in while the mermaid is staggered and with her eyes closed in pain, yet despite the mermaid having her eyes closed, she still manages to almost hit the wolfgirl in the ribs with the crossbow turned club.
A door closes loudly behind Esstrey, followed by the noise of a metal latch falling in place. The door has a lock on both sides, since escaping creatures tend not to be intelligent. Esstrey herself slowly backs up to the door, now that the soldier is properly gone she has some more breathing room, figuratively... and literally. The dwarf moves up, his team behind him as they move to end this nightmare. The dwarf stops at the opening for a bit and sees... a giant fishbowl?
The bowl of water slams out of the doorway, crushing it as the bowl comes to life. The mermaid leaps forward as a small flood of water and debris clogs the hallway, as she makes contact with the water the threat amplifies thrice-fold, the archer is forced to take cover behind a magical barrier conjured by the mage as debris flies her way, and the mage is doing everything she can to stop Esstrey's assault. The dwarf is stuck in the magical whirlpool, safe from everything except the water in his suit of armor. The wolfgirl tries to hide from the attacks, but shards of glass target her and she too hides behind the mage. The man with the greatsword blocks Esstrey's advance, and as the mermaid tries to engulf him like she did the dwarf...
... she gets slashed across her chest, a wide diagonal gash. The corpse of the mermaid getting carried a few extra meters toward the stairway before stopping from the sheer mass of the body. The group quickly recovers from the bossfight, and the mage is rushed by her teammates seeking healing.
"Asahi, I told you we need a healer, preferably before assaulting what amounts to the most concentrated source of heretical magic in the entire Faerune Kingdom. If their guard-fish messed us up this badly, that doesn't say great things on what we will encounter once actually in there." The mage looks to their swordsman with mild disappointment while removing a glass shard from their rogue.
"Nalia, That thing... it shouldn't be here, I have never even heard of that thing, hell I know how mermaids looks and... it isn't like that." Asahi looks with worry to the corpse of the mermaid as if it could get up at any moment, but it's still just a corpse.
"Well Asahi, it just goes to show that you don't know everything, no matter what Larielle claims." The wolfgirl winces as another glass shard gets pulled out.
"Really Xyrashi? He did rather accurately predict the day and methods on how you planned to kill your owner, along with all your fantasies about strapping young- iieep!" Larielle dodges a piece of debris thrown her way by the wolfgirl, and the two start bickering. No one notices during the bickering as the dwarf approaches the mermaid, eager to claim his prize. He lifts his axe, and...
A shovel embeds itself between the plates in the rear of the dwarf's armor. The dwarf gets lifted by the assumed dead mermaid. The entire group gets into combat positions as the mermaid uses the dwarf as a living shield to get to the stairway. Yet, here Esstrey's greatest weakness becomes visible. She already has trouble climbing stairways, but now she has to while carrying a heavily armored dwarf and keeping her body from falling apart at the seams. Her rescue comes into the form of spider-like legs emerging from her back, and slowly helping her climb up as she keeps the dwarf between the magically powered lunatics and her.
Once at the top, she throws the dwarf down the spiral staircase and flees the scene, she delayed past what her paycheck demanded of her, time to bounce.
