The water surrounds me as my mermaid tail swishes through the cerulean ocean, Asteria following. I giggle, bubbles drifting from my mouth, and start powering forward through the sea, heading for Brinehaven’s locale. I grin. “Time for a rematch, you oversized sharky bastard!”

  The swim doesn’t take too long, thanks to us having been there before, and I peer into the ir. “Ohhh, hello there! I see the pearl!”

  Then, a huge shadow glides over the sands, and I whisper, “And there’s the raid boss. I am SO ready for round two…”

  As the aircraft-carrier-sized shark turns, I fsh out of cover, entering the arena and lunging. My new swordspear, Stormbringer, gouges a deep ssh in the massive shark’s side, causing it to roar in actual pain. Asteria splutters, “Whoa! That actually seemed to hurt it!”

  I cackle. “Oh, it’s ON now, you giant toothy fuck!” I stab and ssh at the creature as it whirls, darting back to avoid a chomping bite.

  The huge teeth crash shut inches away from me, and I jab my Stormbringer towards the eye nearest to me. The shark twists enough to avoid losing the orb, but I score another good hit, blood drifting from the wounds. Asteria’s working on trying to draw aggro, but I’m doing enough damage with each hit that it’s a futile endeavour.

  I flick my tail, darting away as the massive shark pursues me.

  “Asteria! Grab the pearl while I’ve got it focussed on me!”

  “On it!”

  I see a fsh of rainbow scales, and then a cloud of churned-up sand obscures my view. The glowing red eyes of the titanic sea-creature fre and bze through the sand-cloud, and I curl my tail just in time to avoid the crashing jaws, thrusting Stormbringer back towards the monster. Another roar of pain, and I dart away again, the earsplitting crack of huge jaws meeting once more, the sudden stirring of water behind me as the shockwave of each bite ripples out.

  I swerve, juking around a worn pilr of stone jutting from the seabed. The pilr shatters into gravel and shrapnel, and I jerk my body, rocketing upwards, as if flying towards the clouds, the huge creature in hot pursuit. However, I have the edge in speed and pull ahead, the furious bellowing of the shark rising to meet me.

  Then, I dive, beating my tail frantically, piling on as much velocity as I can, my Stormbringer held, point-forwards, both of my hands gripping firmly to the haft. Then, I twist the grip.

  “Charged-Pile… BUNKERRRRRR!!!!!”

  As the mega-megalodon’s colossal teeth crash down, about to close on the bde of my swordspear, just as they had once before, but this time…

  “VvvvvrrrrrrrRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!”

  The head of my swordspear begins… to rotate, like an oversized drill-bit, faster and faster, and faster, andfasterandfasterandfasterANDFASTERANDFASTER.

  This time, when the huge teeth meet my weapon…. They splinter apart and break, fragments drifting away on the miniature whirlpool forming around the crazily-spinning head of my Stormbringer.

  I roar, over the jet-engine howl of my weapon,

  “I HOPE YOU KNOW A GOOD DENTIST, YOU GIT!”

  Asteria whoops, throwing out a spear of energy as she jinks around the filing fin of the raid-boss shark monster, her mermaid tail whisking through the water, the magic missile fshing with radiant light as she flings out several more, each spike of magic smacking into the side of the beast.

  I flip back, the thrashing bulk of the gigantic shark causing swirling eddies of deep water to buffet me as I ready myself for another attack. The Charged Pile-Bunker effect has a timer by it, counting down from…

  “Ten minutes? Crap on a croissant!”

  “What? Ten minutes for what, babe?!” Asteria calls. I yell back, “I can’t use the Charged Pile-Bunker again for ten minutes! It’s on cooldown!”

  “Ah fuck! Well, we’ve done some decent damage to this damn fish, but if we give up now, it’ll have the st ugh! I am NOT letting this overgrown minnow win a second time!”

  Asteria’s accent grows thicker, and I can’t help but sigh in bliss. I love that brogue! I love HER! She’s the best girlfriend I could ever have dreamed of!

  The giant shark flexes its jaws, and I note with stunned frustration that I’d forgotten a unique biological trait of the shark species.

  “Astie? We’re in trouble. How’s its HP looking?!”

  “Still the same, why?”

  I yell, “BECAUSE ITS TEETH HAVE GROWN BACK!”

  “Wha?! AH, Jesus WEPT! That’s not feckin’ fair at all, ye bastard salmon! And Kalvess isn’t best pleased I summoned him underwater st time, so I can’t call that icy feck to help wrangle it! Looks like we’re on our own-!”

  A massive iron bolt sms into the mega-megalodon’s snout before exploding with a muffled crumping noise, causing it to writhe and spasm again. A small, bat-winged form tumbles past us, end over end from the recoil, and I blink in surprise.

  “Cwdette?!”

  The Ashiga Executioner who’d been killed way back when we met Gimmel and Doctor Frank’s party grins peppily at us as she swivels in pce, holding an oversized… tube? She cranks a lever and shoves another huge bolt into the weapon.

  “Ulged told me you were having beef with the reef, so I came down to help! I should REALLY have done my research though, you’re both mermaids and that would be SO much easier than trying to fly! Water and wings don’t mix!”

  I snrrk in relief at our unexpected but greatly-appreciated reinforcements. “That’s what I said to Asteria! Now… let’s gang up on this fish!”

  With Cwdette putting her oversized spear-gun to use, I end up having to draw aggro with Astie, the two of us dealing as much damage as we can in turn, keeping the beast focussed on us rather than our floundering Ashiga.

  With her high damage, but low DPS, we manage to keep Cwdette from getting targeted aside from the occasional tail-swipe or half-aimed bite, which she steadily heals from, and we slowly whittle the monster’s HP down, the timer on my weapon’s linked ability counting down second by second.

  Once it’s fully finished the cooldown, I grin.

  “Astie! I’m ready to give it another taste of my Ultimate!”

  “Then do it, Kettrin!”

  I grin, swimming upwards, my fishtail beating the water, before readying my swordspear to throw.

  “Charged Pile-Bunker: Radiant Lance!”

  Combining my ranged spear-throw with the power of my new skill, I rev the engine, sending my Stormbringer rocketing downwards. The gleaming, humming swordspear crashes down, right on target, and I can’t even see what happens after that, since a massive cloud of silt and sand billows up, a subaquatic dust-storm spontaneously generated by my attack.

  When the dust settles, the giant shark… is resting on the seabed, a huge hole all the way through it. It’s dead, and I start to smile, then to ugh.

  “Ha! Hahahahahaaaa! Suck it, shark! I WIN!”

  Asteria nudges me. “Don’t forget, we can now bring the pearl back to Ulged!”

  She holds up a perfect round sphere, the surface gleaming and blue. I cp my hands. “That’s perfect! And tonight, it just so happens that it’s the meteor shower. I’m going to do the thing!”

  Asteria gasps in delight. “Ohhh, I can’t wait to watch that!”

  Cwdette blinks. “What’s this about a meteor?”

  I grin. “Oh, nothing much. I just wanna see if I can punch a meteorite out of the sky!”

  Cwdette blinks several times. “That… sounds insane, I wanna watch too! Can I?”

  I grin and nod. “Yeah, sure! It’ll be tonight, at 11:15 PM, over the Bck Peaks!”

  Checking the time, I grin up at my lover. “Now… shall we drop the pearl off with Ulged and hit the Void? I wanna dance and drink again! And we could visit Dorothea!”

  Asteria grins right back at me, eyes sparkling with mischief.

  “That sounds fun, but we should get out of here first. Let’s see what other loot we can snag from this raid-boss!”

  After hoovering up many, MANY thousands of Ducats-worth of gold, silver, jewels and various trinkets, potions, ingots, and scrolls, Cwdette cims herself a share of the plunder, grinning at the comfortable weight of her coinpurse. She giggles, “Now this is a real fine haul! I haven’t made so much gold in one go, ever!”

  I grin and take her wrist, Dana looping her arm around my waist. I produce my Stone of Rapid Transference. “Vassim, outside Bloodbath & Beyond!”

  The world wobbles, and as we reappear on dry nd, Asteria and I quick-swap into our armour, removing the mermaid-transformation colrs, and nding safely on our own feet. I sigh in relief.

  “Uhhh, this is SO much better. I can stretch my wings, and I have all the freedom the skies can offer me!”

  While Astie goes to hand off the giant blue pearl to the Gnoll bcksmith, I turn my attention to Cwdette.

  “Cwdette, I have a question. Are you a part of any guild, yet?”

  The Ashiga shrugs. “Not really. I haven’t found one I really felt was ‘right’ for me. I want somewhere I can actually excel, show off what I can do. Most guilds want an Executioner css to be the boring ‘sneaky-sneaky-sneak-sneaky-sneaky-sneaky… stab-in-the-butt!’ type of build, and I am… not that build. I like being chaotic and having fun with my character!”

  I stifle a ugh at Cwdette’s… eloquent way of putting it. “Well, there’s a guild I know that would be gd to have you! And I know for a fact that you fit all the requirements!”

  The short Ashiga leans on her spear-gun, resting the stock of the oversized weapon against the cobblestones. “Oh? What guild, and what requirements?”

  I smile. “Well, the requirements are A, that you can fly, and since you have wings, that’s an easy check. B, you’re not a dick. You’ve gotta be a nice person.”

  Cwdette unfurls her wings a little. “Yeah, I CAN fly. And as for not being a dick, I don’t even HAVE one, so I wouldn’t know how to act like one!”

  I choke back a second ugh. “As for the name of the guild, it’s called the Wings of the Storm. Don’t worry, though, I can put in a good word for you with the Guildmaster. I know her personally.”

  Cwdette pulls open her menu and I smile as she applies. I produce my Guildmaster’s Scroll and the Guild Quill.

  “Sign here, please. Your application has been approved!”

  Cwdette’s eyes widen as she blinks several times. I can’t help but giggle at her poleaxed expression. She takes the Quill and signs her name in self-propagating glowing golden ink that fshes and settles into bck ink on the vellum.

  I stick my hand out. “Welcome to the Wings of the Storm! Our guild ship is over in the Darkheart region. We’re on a very special mission that I can’t reveal yet, since I need to swear you to secrecy first. But if you’ve gone to the outpost out that way, you’ll be able to pick up our location on the map. Alternatively, you can come with us when we’re finished here!”

  Cwdette shakes, her smile widening. “Oh heck yeah! I do need to log out and get some food real quick, but I’ll meet you here! I can’t wait to see you punch an asteroid!”

  I grin and nod. “Alright. Message me when you’re ready, we’ll be leaving at 10.00 PM server-time, in order to get to the Bck Peaks and watch out for the meteor shower at 11:15.”

  As Cwdette leaves, I pull open my Skill-Forge, spending 50 of my 76 skill-points to bump Thunder Cannon from level 3 to level 10.I grin as I notice a little ‘+’ sign beside it. I thumb the indicator, and a series of options for skill evolutions appear.

  “Oooh, now this could be fun… let’s see, what would be most useful to pick from?”

  I peruse the choices, as Asteria emerges, smiling at me as she shakes her hair out, the sunlight shimmering across her scarlet-dyed hair.