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

called back and grinned as she snorted in amusement, her armor gleaming as the rain lashed it again and again.

She’d pulled a hooded cloak out of somewhere and wore that over her shoulders and head, but even I could see it was doing little in here, as the wind changed direction so frequently, blasting us both from every angle.

“Where’s everyone else?” I shouted, seeing she was alone on the upper deck, with the enemy ships obscured by a bank of clouds.

“Below decks!” She shouted, then gestured at a rope that disappeared into the deck nearby. “There’s a bell on the end, old gnomish trick apparently, all I have to do is yank on it and they’ll come running, no need for everyone to get wet!”

“Nice!” I shouted to her. “How long do we have?”

“Not long!” She tried pulling her hood around to make it block more of the wind driven rain that was getting to her even inside her helmet, before she gave up and yanked it off, rolling it up and dumping it into her bag. “The gnomes are halfway, they say they should be done with the outside stuff soon, then they can start on the inside.”

“There’s a gang of them hiding in the damn wheelhouse…” I growled, and she nodded.

“There’s not a lot they can do there now, they made the connectors, Frederikk says they can’t do more until the outside is done, and those that are hiding, well, they’d be useless anyway, fear makes for shitty inventing apparently.” Yen shouted, holding a hand up to block the rain for a few seconds, before shaking her head in frustration. “This god damn rain! It’s coming from every angle!”

“Joys of a Storm I guess!” I shouted, hearing my voice carry further than I intended as we passed out a band of the rain and wind, into a sudden quiet patch. I looked around, the lashing rain dropping to a gentle patter as I shook my head at the madness of a mana filled storm.

“It does this…” Yen said at a more normal volume, pulling her helm off and producing a cloth from her bag to wipe the inside and to dry her face. “One minute it’s all madness, the next it’s a summer shower. Remind me to never do this again, okay?”

“Yeah, me too.” I said to her, grinning as I looked at her, and she looked over the Helm.

“Is that the one you took from the Vault?” She asked and I nodded, pulling it off and handing it over for her to examine, it felt peculiar with the sudden loss of the five points in Wisdom and Perception, but I knew I’d get them back when I put the Helm back on.

“Nice…” She said simply, turning it over in her hands. It was a full-head helm, with a small section cut free for each eye, creating a reinforced forehead that I just knew I was going to use to fuck up someone’s day, and a small section removed in lower mouth, where the helm came down to a point. There was a small line cut out to aid breathing, but it was too narrow for almost any weapons. The entire helm was molded to follow the contours of the face, and it fit… amazingly. Like it was made for me. The final crowning glory was the plume.

I’d never wanted one before; they looked like they were basically there to sweep the ceiling clear of cobwebs normally, but this one was different. It was made from thousands of tiny spines, razor-sharp, and seemed to shift in color, depending on my location. They dimmed when in shadow, glowed in sunlight, and generally looked awesome.

Yen passed it back with a smile and nodded as I slid it back on, blinking as the effect took hold again.

“It suits you,” she said simply.

“Thanks Yen.” I said smiling, even though I knew she couldn’t see it. “So, some of the gnomes are working under Grizz’s shield; what about the others?” I asked.

“The bravest amongst them are out on the hull, fixing the collectors into place now, and we’re all just waiting really. Those assholes chasing us closed the distance a few times, but never for long, even with the change in direction, so we’re slowly pulling ahead again. They don’t seem greatly confident with their ship’s weapons, or they’d have shot us down long since.”

“Oren told me once that they tend to explode when they’re used too frequently…” I said, nodding and thinking about how crazy you’d have to be to willingly carry a weapon that had a good chance of exploding and killing you instead of the enemy each time you tried to use it.

“I’ve heard that, but nobody was going to waste the gold and platinum on giving things like that to the Legion…” she said philosophically, looking out into the clouds and searching grimly.

“Well, that’s a thing of the past, isn’t it…?” I said, grinning. “… just wait until the Battleship is finished. We’ll get the damn cannons figured out and make sure they’re safe to use, then…”

“Where are they?” she interrupted absently, gesturing outwards. “They should be coming out of the clouds by now.”

“What?” I asked, frowning.

“The ships; they should have been there. I mean, they took forever to adjust to our new course, and they stopped firing at us, so maybe they’re too low on mana now, but even so, I didn’t think they would just give up?”  Yen muttered, searching the skies around us.

“How long since you’ve seen them do anything?” I asked her, my stomach clenching in fear.

“What?” she asked, confused.

“How long since they did anything?” I repeated. “When I came up, I caught a glimpse of them, but everyone was standing still… even the catapult was half-assembled…”

“They’ve been like that for a while…” She muttered, gaping at me in horror.

“It’s a spell!” I snarled, rushing to the rope, and yanking on it, hearing a bell ring faintly below us. “Tell Jian to change course!” I