Chapter 52. Vessel

Dozens of eyes stared up from the deck as Abe stood atop the wooden bulwark. It had been too long since he had taken his true form in all its glory, and the sensation filled his veins with pulsating delight. 

Unclipping his magnum, Abe eyed the shroomking captain at the rear of the deck. There were at least a dozen mushroom sailors between them and just as many guests of various dreamer species.

Twitching forward, Abe watched the crew flinch and the passengers gasp, tightening their grasp around their weapons and inching backward.

“This ain’t no dream,” he muttered beneath his breath as his tendrils shot out across the desk, taking hold of the masts, surrounding railing, and even a sporeling that was caught off guard, flinging them into the dark abyss of the Vale.

Pulling on the tendrils, Abe flung himself up above the deck and then back down. He landed between several stunned sporelings who could barely keep up with his movement and spun into a windmilling attack, cutting them into white ribbons of fibrous flesh.

Spears turned around him as their wielders charged, but Abe’s tendrils pulled him back up into the mast above and then yoyoed him back down into their flank, his momentum alone crushing one of the sporeling sailors, and the vicious strikes of his sword cutting apart the others.

A pointy-eared passenger lined up an arrow several meters away and fired. The arrow whizzed through the air in a second and pierced his shoulder, and in return, Abe aimed his pistol and fired—blowing a chunk out of the pointy-eared man’s forehead.

A waist-high man with a thick, white beard across from Abe, who looked like he belonged in someone’s garden, downed a potion. Within seconds, veins rippled across his body, and muscle grew from his soft, pink skin. His clothes expanded and ripped, revealing a chest covered in bushy, white hair, and within a couple of seconds, had grown to over 7ft and just as wide.

Cutting through two charging sporelings, Abe’s brow rose as the giant gnome charged toward him, knocking one of the sporelings off of the deck in the process.

But his tendrils were still wrapped around the mast, and Abe flung himself back into the air. Rearranging his tendrils, Abe wrapped them around the bulwark railing as the gnome skidded to a halt and funneled as much deathly energy into them as he could, channeling it to pull himself back down and shoot himself into the gnome’s back. Landing with both feet slamming into the center of the gnome’s back, Abe sent the gnome crashing straight through the bulwark and flying out into the Vale.

Leading a charge at his back, another of the pointy-eared warriors swirled a delicate-looking sword around their body as they ran, and Abe fired off his magnum in their direction. Their movements were fast, fast enough to avoid the first couple of shots but not the third or fourth, which blew chunks out of their arm and thigh, slowing them to a bloody, maimed figure stumbling forward.

Abe shot in their direction, grabbing hold of a spear stabbing toward him and pushing it aside as he cut the sporeling in two and skidded toward the maimed swordsman, decapitating his defensiveness form with a flick of his wrist.

The sporeking captain stood at the helm, and three gnomes stood between them, pointing crossbows.     

The volley came fast, and even with his speed, aided by the tendrils, one of them caught his thigh, but it did dissuade Abe, and he sent himself flying in their direction, pulling on the essence of a sponge button and filling the air with miasmic spores. The gnomes immediately began to cough and wave the spore cloud away from them, but it was hopeless; the dense fog of spores wouldn’t be dispelled so easily.

Landing between them, Abe effortlessly cut down the coughing and confused gnomes that could hardly manage a defense with the toxic cloud, let alone an offense.

A sporeling stood before his captain, spear trembling, and Abe’s tendrils snaked past its hopeless defense and flung it out into the stars. 

He could sense the orb behind the captain. The feeling that the dreamer orb let off was odd, one that made his deathly core frightful, but Abe knew he could control it now. He was close now. Once in control, he wouldn’t need to fear someone turning the ship around and traveling back into the domain.

“What are you?” the captain grunted, pointing a cutlass at Abe while maintaining his control over the vessel. “How could the dead possibly hide their presence in Old Silveroot’s domain?”

“I’d love to give you a lesson, but I’m short on time,” Abe grunted and flung himself toward the captain.

Abe shot toward the sporeking in a second, but he was no ordinary mushroom and parried a flurry of strikes that would’ve killed any of the other spores aboard this vessel ten times over.

A couple of gnomes charged his back as they fought, but the tendrils shot out, piercing their unguarded flesh and filling their veins with mushroom poison that sent them falling to the ground, foaming from the mouth as they convulsed across the timber deck.

Toxic spores burst from the captain as their swords clung against one another, but Abe channeled his dreamer energy, mutating his face so that his nose and mouth twisted into the white flesh of a sporeling.

“What the,” the captain spat as he swung out. “What horrid mutation are you?”

“Not mutation, evolution,” Abe sneered as he quickened his pace. No matter how strong this sporeking was, it couldn’t keep up with his raw speed and strength, and soon, he was landing glancing strikes, cutting away at the captain’s flesh as he was forced to choose where to defend.

“Monstrosity,” the captain sneered, but it was just a final act of rebellion as Abe's sword landed mortal blows, opening long slits of flesh across his abdomen and chest.

A handful of sporeling ran up to the deck from the lower levels, but fear quickly overwhelmed them as they saw the corpse-ridden battlefield, and when Abe flew toward them, they were frozen in place, no defense evident as he cut them down.

The scent of evolutionary brains almost overwhelmed him now. It wasn’t just the captain; several passengers had been strong enough to offer him brains that would further his quest for evolution.

With the deck cleared, he released his hunger, and the feeding began, cracking skulls apart like fruits as he lapped up their insides.

He could still sense many souls beneath the deck, but it seemed they knew better than to challenge him now.

As he bit into the captain’s core-brain, he felt his body tremble with the promise of power flooding through it.

He ordered a tendril to wrap around the dreamer orb as he finished his meal, and a partially warped and concealed map of the Vale filled his inner mind. It was a combination of what he knew and of what the orb itself had seen. He knew that if he had attempted this when he was just a ghoul or even a wight, the power would have destroyed him, but after consuming Mor’kel and gaining the ability to control dreamer energy, he gained the ability also to control their orbs and other energy-rich items.

He sat at the helm above the captain’s corpse, tendrils wrapped around the deck, which he had turned into his lair. 

Channeling dreamer energy into the orb, he redirected the vessel toward Lantern. It was time for a coming home party.

Sniffing the air, he took in the scents of those below deck. Only one held any promise, but there was also the potential for treasures.

Climbing to his feet, Abe cracked his neck and began across the deck. He could feel the energy sources below squirm at his movements. They were tracking him just as he was them, and they certainly didn’t want him coming below. 

He had time to kill until Lantern, but he did have to be cautious about the helm. It was the only real threat the remaining sporelings and passengers had. If they took hold of it somehow, they could cause trouble, so he paused. 

He could control the orb from some distance, but the tendrils weren’t long enough to travel below deck while maintaining control of the orb.

Hesitating, he returned to the helm. He couldn’t sense anything below that was worth risking his mission, not when he had come so close.

There was another thought. What if Old Silveroot’s minions chased after him with another ship? Any delay could put him at risk if someone was preparing to chase after him, and he wasn’t sure how to run from an enemy in an Astral Ship. No, that was far too risky. He needed to remain here, at least until Lantern.

********

Deep within Old Silveroot, a huge, hunchbacked shroom entered an inner chamber. Unlike the others, his back was a colony of mushrooms dotted by at least a hundred sprouting caps. As he entered the small, well-lit room, he fell to the ground, bowing before a face etched into the great tree's wood.

“I beg your forgiveness, my Lord!” the mushroom cried out, banging his stalk against the wooden floor.

Vines snaked across the ground, wrapping around the mushroom’s body and throat, and tightened.

“Ror’rel, I grant you emporership, and this is how you repay me?”

“I swear, I will return the treasure to you, my lord.”

“You know how long I have cultivated that acorn for? A millennia. Longer than the existence of your entire house.”

“I understand,” the mushroom’s breath came short as the vines squeezed harder, pulling the giant mushroom up and off the ground.

“That acorn is a gift. It promises to unite our great domains. You know the dark creature that I have promised it to. We have planned this for so long, and now your incompetence threatens it all!”

“Please, give me another chance.”

“Ha,” the tree roared and shook, releasing the vines and dropping Ror’rel back to the floor. “Go, return the acorn, or your entire house shall be wiped from the Vale.”

“Yes, my Lord. Thank you for your leniency, and I promise you, your will shall be done.”

“It better be, little spore.”

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