Titan: A LitRPG Adventure (UnderVerse Book 4) by Jez Cajiao (beach books .txt) 📗

free you, I’m going to need to keep the damn thing. I am at war, after all.” I shrugged and forced a smile. “Seriously, though, I am sorry, both for forcing you to obey, and for the shit that was done to you in the past. I need your help, Tenandra. Will you join me?”

“I… will,” she replied slowly, nodding her head to me, becoming more animated as she went on. “I will join you, Lord Jax. At least with you, I have a chance of freedom one day, and by the Oath you just gave, you would not further enslave our kind. If we were to find others in the wild, with you, they would be safe, instead of bonded against their will. In fact…” She took a deep breath. “I will agree to serve you, willingly, and provide everything you need, and I will ask only two things in return: first, that you agree to preserve, protect, and defend any wisp clans that you find out about…” She paused, watching me intently and looking relieved when I nodded my assent. “… and secondly, that you allow me to roam the skies again, but no longer as a mere passenger and assistant. Allow me to join with a ship, and if we rebuild it, a Prax. Let me evolve into the greatest form I can imagine! Let me be free to roam the realm, protecting my kind, and all those who would be enslaved… make me an instrument of destruction and rebirth, of freedom and fear. Make me truly into the Prax ‘Glorious Retribution’!” She spoke with passion in her tiny voice, almost shaking with the desire to be more than she was. To no longer be constrained by the Core she lived in, or to be locked away again in a vault to wait out the years and centuries for someone to demand her servitude once again.

“I agree,” I said simply. “We need you to join with this ship for now, and if we decide there is a need later on, then you can, I guess, integrate this ship into the superstructure of the Battleship, or the Prax, if we can repair it in truth?”

“I can,” she said firmly. “I will bond to the ship, but it will take time, and we will need the gnomes to cease their infernal tinkering with my new body, and to instead concentrate on the Core and the Manastones, not to mention, rigging collectors…”

“Good point,” I said, nodding grimly. “Giint!” I shouted, making the semi-comatose gnome in the corner start in terror, almost jumping out of his skin as he awoke from his drug-induced somnolence. “Get your ass in gear and find me Frederikk and any of the other Elders you can. Get them in here, right goddamn now, as fast as you can!”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Giint sprinted for the door, his determination to prove his usefulness only slightly diminished by his frantic attempts to ‘push’ on a ‘pull’ door. It took him a few seconds to calm down enough to realize what was wrong, and then he was gone, pausing only as I shouted at him to send in Yen as well.

She was the first to arrive, of course, having been outside on the deck already, and although she coughed a little at the fumes coming off the alchemy set, she was quick to smile when she saw that Tang had regained a little color, not to mention the collection of potions next to him, ready and waiting.

“Yen…” I said, wasting no time. “We’ve got a chance, despite the shitty condition of the ship, but we’re heading into the storm. No choice about it; defend the ship as best you can until things get dicey out there, then get in here or below decks. I don’t want to lose anyone, and we’re going in hard and deep.” I paused, reflexively, then sighed at the obvious double-entendre that shot right over her head, missing Bane all over again.

“Yes, Jax,” she said, nodding. “How bad will it get out there?”

“Bad,” Tenandra interjected, landing on the ship’s controls, and reaching out, slipping her hands into the nearest crystal and letting out a little gasp as she began to interface herself with it, before explaining. “We’re going to try to get the ship into the densest mana concentrations, so expect lightning, at the very least.”

“Right,” Yen said after a wide-eyed pause. “And… can the ship survive that?” she asked carefully.

“Probably not for long,” Tenandra replied distractedly, turning to me, and holding out a hand.

I understood what she needed instinctively and stepped in close, holding my hand out and feeling her tiny fingers rest on mine. Her hand both gripped my flesh and drew out mana that helped to sustain her in the bonding.

“What’s happening out there?” I asked Yen, and she shrugged.

“Not much. We basically fire off potshots at each other. The distance is too great for anything else. An occasional firebolt or magic missile is all we can manage; no bow can shoot with accuracy at that range, and when they try to use their cannons, Jian dodges.”

“Cannons?” I asked. “I’d not even heard them… not beyond the lightning one…”

“Then you’re lucky. Most of the time, they’ve fired a shot here and there, but the last twenty minutes, they’ve been trying a lot harder. I don’t think they dare go all-out. Cannons are just too unstable, but they don’t want us getting away, either…”

As she spoke, I felt the ship shift to one side slightly and a burst of power boosted the engines, followed by a distant scream of something hurtling through the air. I realized I’d felt this again and again, and heard the accompanying sounds, as well, but I’d dismissed them as unimportant, as I had been engrossed in saving Tang and in my alchemy.

I could see more notifications blinking for my attention, and I dampened them down again, resolving to deal with them later. I just didn’t have the time. As Giint