6 Ymiden 720
What was this room he found himself in? Balthazar gave a quick look around. He recognized the ship. It was the same ship he'd been on that fateful trial at sea. The ship he'd been tortured on for wandering out beyond curfew. This was the captain's quarters... his quarters. Balthazar looked around for a few trills and made his way to the door. It let out into the lower deck where a few dozen faceless figures went about their trial trying to keep the ship in top shape. Some stopped what they were doing to salute Balthazar as he passed by them but Balthazar never said anything to them. He almost didn't seem to notice them at all.
He found the stairway up to the deck and emerged to find the ship alive with the faceless crew. Some were singing shanties Balthazar didn't understand, others were doing their job and trying to unfurl the mainsail so they could pick up a little bit more speed. Balthazar made his way up to the bow of the ship and looked off into the horizon. There was nothing but the vast ocean of blood as far as the eye could see for a few trills until a little island emerged in the distance. Not just any island, the island. The island from all the dreams before this one. He was sailing to it... did that mean tonight's Immortal was already on the island waiting for him?
No it had never been that way before... then again he'd never woken up on a ship before. Suddenly the ship lurched and the phantom crew was thrown off balance, including Balthazar. Balthazar grabbed a hold of the railing to stay on his feet and his eyes shot down into the thick red water pushing their ship to the island. Something was beneath the waves. A large outline that Balthazar just barely missed as it shifted through the water to the stern of the ship. Balthazar's eyes widened and he ran across the deck, up the steps to the wheel, and to the back of the ship where he caught the massive black outline retreating further down into the blood sea.
"I have a bad feeling about this." Balthazar whispered to himself as he stared into the water, waiting for any sign of the mass that had rocked the ship. Suddenly there was another jolt that knocked Balthazar off his feet and flung him backwards onto the deck. The skies darkened and rain began to fall. Even a novice sailor like Balthazar knew that was not a good sign. He got back onto his feet and looked around as the faceless crew began to work faster to get them to the island.
In the end it was not the storm above that Balthazar had to fear, it was the Storm below. A massive wave rocked the ship as the beast emerged from the sea. Blood rained off the creature's tentacles as they rose from the sea only to slap back down against the water suddenly, sending more waves to knock over the ship. Balthazar thought quickly and thrust his hands forwards, commanding the rising wall of water back into the sea only for another to crash into the ship from behind. Damn. A swath of the crew wash washed away from their stations by the blood water and they fumbled around on the ground trying to rise after the crash. Balthazar began turning in a circle, embracing the wind around himself to hover up to the crow's nest for a better view.
"Man the cannons!" Balthazar shouted as he reached the crow's nest and finally saw the full form of the creature emerging from the sea. Chrien. She rose till only her waist was left submerged beneath the blood sea. A massive tentacle rose from the sea and Chrien brought it over the ship to smash it into the sea. Balthazar thrust his hands forward again, conjuring a powerful blast of wind that forced the tentacle off course but didn't stop it from crashing down beside the ship as the first volley of cannon-fire rang out.
Balls of fire shot out from the broadside of the ship, crashing against Chrien's abdomen and causing the Immortal to flail in pain slightly before setting her sights on the boat. It became painfully clear to Balthazar then that the only reason she hadn't destroyed the ship yet was because she hadn't been focusing on it. Chrien's hand bore down on the ship, smacking it out of the water and into the sky.
Balthazar was thrown from the crow's nest in the chaos and caught himself with the wind while the ship splintered apart and the faceless crew met their demise. Chrien didn't see the ant of a man flying in the sky because she was watching the ship as it crashed back into the see, hull-side up. Blue sparks began dancing together between Balthazar's hands. Little arcs leapt from his fingers to the ball of electricity collecting and growing in the center before that ball stretched into a spear of lightning. Balthazar hurled the electric spear at the Immortal and it seared into the scales on her shoulder. Chrien wailed and swung her arms but struck nothing. She looked around frantically for the source of her pain and Balthazar flew quickly to try and stay behind Chrien and out of her view.
The lightning had not done the damage it had for the others. He'd have to think outside the box this time. Fortunately his battle with Karem had given him the inspiration he needed to figure out his plan of attack. This time he did not conjure lightning. He held out his hands, flying through the air as he was, and a stone cannon formed in his grasp. Holding the cannon took both hands so he had no conventional means of firing it but he didn't need conventional means. Balthazar willed the cannon to fire an a ball of hot earth shot forth from it, crashing into Chrien's back. Another outcry of pain and the Immortal had found Balthazar.
She turned and swung her massive hand at Balthazar who dropped the cannon in his grasp and flew up to avoid Chrien's swing. Regardless, she clipped the bottom of his foot and sent Balthazar into a mad spiral towards the blood sea below. He waved his arms frantically to try and coax the wind to slow him down but-
SLAP!
Balthazar crashed into the sea and the waved immediately pulled him under... and down... and down... and down... It took a few trills to realize it was no longer simply the water dragging him beneath the surface, but a tentacle that had wrapped around his leg. Balthazar's eyes widened and he governed a sword into his hand which he swiped through the water to sever the tentacle around his leg. Balthazar looked up and that was when he saw her again.
Chrien was beneath the waves once more, eyes locked on the tiny mage trapped beneath the sea as he desperately tried to swim up towards the surface. Her large mouth opened slowly revealing razor-like teeth as Chrien's head bobbed forward in the sea to consume the mage who was too slow to stop the Immortal. Post traumatic stress stuck the mage as Chrien began to chew- her razor teeth just like the caves on Faldrass with the stalagmites and stalactites trying to tear the mage to pieces. Balthazar didn't know what to do. The world had gone dark and the only way to tell where her teeth would chomp down next was through his omnivision. It was enough to keep him from getting bitten but not enough to get Balthazar out... so he didn't go out.
He went down... down Chrien's throat... and he began to burn as he did. Blue flames danced around the mage's body as he moved through the Immortal's throat to the wall. It was hard to describe what cries of pain sounded like when you were inside the throat that was making them, but the cries didn't last long before-
POP!
Balthazar burst through the side of Chrien's neck, a little ball of fire in sky. Chrien gasped, wailed, and gripped at the bleeding hole in her neck but she could do nothing to fix the damage that had been done. Slowly her blood blackened the waters around Balthazar and she sunk lower and lower into the deep... and the dream ended.
