137 A really humongous objective

Walking over the platform Kay greeted the first patrol of two he met. The whole cave was still filled with fog, though it had gotten less over the past hours.

Seconds after the men passed each other, two of them fell down like another pair of them before.

Jay had disguised himself as one of the sailors and put the red bandana over his face. To his own surprise it worked out quite well and when he met the first patrol they simply greeted each other.

Only when he was behind them did Jay get into action and twisted one of the men's neck and pummeled the other, then he knocked the second one out as well and finished him off with his dagger.

The exact same thing happened to the second patrol as well and Jay had reached the end of the platform in no time.

Thanks to the fog thinning out, he got a better impression of the Juggernaught but still couldn't see it really good.

Walking down the plank onto the rocky island again, Jay found the dead man from before still lying there. Passing the rock formation and trying to reach the other end, he found another opponent though.

One of the bandits was using a (Hide) skill of lower level than Jay had himself and was waiting to ambush him. That seemed the reason they left he corpse lying there as it would possibly make Jay feel safe.

That idea fired back of course as Jay pulled down his bandana and revealed himself to lure the man in. His head and his torso revealed themselves after each other as Jay had separated them while the man was still in his hiding.

He had not in the slightest anticipated Jay to attack him, even less this precisely and with a slash.

After pulling the corpse to the side and kicking the head into the water, Jay pulled up his red bandana and walked to the wooden plank leading up to yet another platform.

That one was a lot smaller from what he had seen and at just halfway up the plank he saw the next patrol.

This time it was three buccaneers and fearing someone else could spot him should he openly engage them, Jay got an idea.

"Hey, guys…. Over here, I found one of us!" J.

"Huh? Hey, where's your partner?" was all that came from the man seemingly leading the small group.

While they did follow Jay down the plank and away from the platform, he had to thinks of something fast not to blow his cover too early.

"My p… oh fuck, where's Eagan? Shit..." J.

His acting worked out perfectly as the patrol covered him from all sides, presenting their backs to him.

The leader died first with a sword peeking out of his chest after Jay rammed it to the guard into his back. It was just milliseconds later that the other man died from his head facing the wrong direction.

Only with the overly skinny woman, Jay was a little late to ram the dagger between her ribs what killed her instantly as well.

The slight delay was due to it being a woman and Jay hating to waste options. After she fell down he took off her bandana and saw she was by far no beauty and had nearly half of her teeth missing.

Glad he hadn't wasted anything, Jay pulled the three to the side after plundering them and walked up to the second platform.

Spotting the second patrol at the other end of there he knew it had been the right decision to lure the first patrol down.

As the two men left on the platform were easy prey again, Jay pulled them to the side and threw their corpses down on the island where a small pile of dead already lay. Crossing the platform again, Jay went to the side facing the ship and got a full view on it for the first time.

The Juggernaught was really humongous, bigger than any ship he had seen at the shore or even in the harbor of Arathor.

Only the split shipwreck he entered was at least close to the size of this ship, but still a good portion smaller.

Two cannon decks over another some yards up from the water line and one deck atop was big, but nothing out of the ordinary. The huge stern and bow cabins though were, as well as the width of the ship. Though it looked a little plump, Jay could imagine how this ship would roll through a battlefield leaving nothing but devastation.

One thing he saw irritated him though: The ship was missing it's masts. All it had to that point was half a main mast and the stern one. The hull looked to be done completely and even got reinforced with metal plates at the prow and some other parts, but Jay couldn't spot that many many men working on it.

Walking a bit back, Jay reached another plank leading down to yet another rock island.

It was flat like the first one and all he found on it was a patrol of three buccaneers.

They were walking to his direction and passed him as he stepped from the plank.

Jay could already see a long and broad plank leading up to the Juggernaughts bow deck when Jay heard a shout coming from behind. It was the patrol he had passed and not wanted to kill as it was bound to get seen.

They seemed to have stumbled over traces of him killing the other buccaneers and came running towards Jay, ordering him to stop.

When the first of the men arrived over the plank in front of him, Jay stabbed his dagger through a gap in is ribs right into the man's heart.

He then kicked the dying buccaneer back so he crashed into the next one behind him. Latter lost his balance and fell into the water, pulling the first who got stabbed with him.

Getting another idea from this, Jay grinned and boosted his right leg with mana and kicked out.

His target was not the female buccaneer in still more than two yards distance but the plank she was standing on. It broke to the immense force Jay's kick had and fell together with the woman into the water.

At the same time, the survivor who fell first had managed to crawl onto the shore and was climbing the flat rock island.

Jay again kicked out, this time aiming for the mans head and when he hit, the man flew back into the water.

Seeing two shark fins closing in, Jay took the two steps over to where the only woman from the patrol was trying to get out of the water.

Stepping on her hand to signal she wouldn't come and further, he had to jump to the side next.

One of the big sharks came flying out of the water and onto the shore, bit into the woman and pulled her back into the water.

Watching the gory scene playing before his eyes as the two sharks ripped the buccaneers apart, Jay noted to himself to always keep some distance from the water in this cave. But he couldn't even watch the demise of the patrol to end when suddenly Jay heard heavy steps on the plank behind him.

Turning around he found the source of those steps:

It was a humongous figure of at least 9 feet, covered in thick black fur that shook the whole boarding plank with each single step.

To both sides of the monstrosities cow head, two thick horns grew straight to the sides and its hooves even seemed to threaten the plank to break under the massive weight.

Within the massive hands it wielded an axe befitting it's size and after Jay analyzed his next opponent, he learned he was going to face the first Mate of the Juggernaught.

__________

First Mate Mr. Th'wack (Swashbuckler LVL19)

Base LVL24

*Tauren*

HP 3270/3270 * Mana 30/30

[Axe Mastery LVL 3]

[Dagger LVL 2]

[Sailing LVL 1]

[Commanding LVL1]

__________

Behind Mr. Th'wack he saw a dark clothed bandit coming down the plank and taking one more step forward, Jay finally understood what had happened.

Next to the plank was one more of the bandits waiting in hiding mode, so he understood the fight with the patrol got seen and the bandits called for reinforcements.

As the next battle was inevitable, Jay took out his dagger and the hammer he hadn't used since a while. With an opponent of this size and a big weapon, swift strikes were his best option and other than with the hammer, Jay had no options to parry the giant axe.

Asking himself why the first mate came without more men as reinforcements, Jay learned the answer when his opponent rushed in and engaged combat with a wide swing.

He would have killed most of his men if they were close, so a one on one was best suited for him.

Other than Jay, most of the Tauren's opponents would have died with this single attack as well or at least received serious injuries. Jay though had ducked down, rushed in himself and cut deep into the hooved leg with his dagger in the passing.

He had to dodge a dagger next as the two bandits were still waiting for their chances.

Thanks to a hammer landing in the face of the first, Jay had to care for only one bandit from then on.

He still decided to speed up the fight in fear of countless buccaneers, bandits and so on to come rushing in on him.

Loading both weapons with lightning, Jay dashed in on the Tauren and tried to slice its tendons, but the bull had been anticipating that. Still managing to at least get a light hit in on his opponents arm, Jay gained some distance again and made ready for the next attack.

The first mate though seemed pretty unfazed by the lightning charge even though it stunned it and took quite some of its health.

This again didn't surprise Jay as he had already noticed the bandit that was left tried coming from behind.

Disappearing at last second, it was Mr. Th'wack that go a surprise attack when Jay sliced his dagger deep through its back and even cracked one of its massive ribs with his hammer.

From then on, Jay got in multiple times and the small slices and wounds had accumulated on the Taurens body so much, its health had dropped to half. Just at the moment when Jay was getting close again it then hammered its massive Axe into the ground.

The floor shook so much, it even threw Jay off balance and stunned him for a second.

That had been enough for the first Mate to leave his demolished Axe and rush over to a crate at the side, next to the plank.

To Jay's misfortune that wasn't all that happened as his opponent yelled something and he had to dodge a slash the moment he could move again.

It barely was enough time and so Jay received a long cut over his chest. Had he worn his armor, this would probably have been nothing, but with only the shirt it dealt some heavy damage and hindered his movements.

That didn't mean he had no options to retaliate though.

As the bandit came for a follow up attack while he was still half kneeling, Jay parried it with the dagger and swung his hammer upwards with a (Crushing Blow).

Whit this he completely destroyed the man's sword.

Not the one in his hands but the one between his legs.

Leaving the whimpering "man" lying there with his shattered hip bones after he landed back on the floor, the hit had lifted him over two and a half yards, Jay looked towards Mr. Th'wack. The Tauren had opened the chest and taken out two hatchets.

At least for the massive creature they looked tiny, but to Jay they were still quite massive axes.

The two continued their one on one from then on with this time the first Mate initiating an attack. Jay parried the hatchet with ease, but before he could counter he had to dodge the other weapon.

For the next double attack, Jay did it the other way around and first dodged, then parried. This enabled him to counter with (Riposte) and a long cut over the chest, mirroring his own, appeared on his opponent.

Like this it went on for a few more clashes, but the Tauren had learned his lesson and guarded himself better from then on, so only shallow cuts got sewn all over his body.

It had managed to get some scratches on Jay as well, but nothing major.

The Tauren took a bit of distance to Jay, only some steps back, and deeply breathed in. Having seen this move already, only in a lesser fashion, Jay knew exactly what it was going to do and decided to end the fight.

With all his might he threw his hammer towards Mr. Th'wacks head.

This attack was his only chance to stop his opponent from what he was doing, that was trying to yell out a shout, probably to call reinforcements how Jay guessed.

He was in no shape to fight off maybe hundreds of opponents so he had taken drastic measures.

But the first mate smacked away the hammer that rocketed towards its head with the hatchet in his right hand. The swing looked like it was done with ease, but the broken apart axe proved otherwise.

The Tauren looked down at his hand to see the hatchet slide out of it and fall to the ground, and then its world turned dark...

It hadn't been some special skill or anything, just a dagger sticking into Mr. Th'wack's left eye that had killed the first Mate.

Jay had used a small series of skills simultaneously what had led to this outcome. Combining (Thrown) with (Double Strafe) and (Hidden Weapons) after loading the Weapons with lightning beforehand, it resulted in one deadly blow.

And it was a Bulls Eye.

As it had taken quite some of his stamina and Jay slightly wished for some kind of indicator telling him how much steam he had left, he sat down to recuperate and heal himself. Though he had found out over the countless battles in the last days that he could use abilities simultaneously and even combine them from different skill types, he had never before used three at once while also using mana to boos him and his weapons.

Though the result was fear inducing, it took a heavy toll on him as each single actions stamina cost not only doubled, it felt like it quadrupled.

Noting to himself to ask in the Guild or look it up, he dismissed the thoughts about the theory of combining skills and took care of his wounds.

Like always when he had received some, the cuts had already closed themselves and Jay only used the great heal on himself to make sure there wouldn't be any scars left behind on this absurdly marvelous body of his.

It wasn't for his own good as he thought one or two scars would be quite cool and enable him to tell some stories, but the thought of how Mia or Alexis would react was anything but pleasant.

Done healing and recovering a little bit, Jay walked over to the giant body and pulled the still crackling dagger out of the Tauren's head. It had lost quite some sharpness and he saw it wouldn't hold out that much longer.

The harsh uses and abuses on his descent down there had taken a toll on the qualitatively not too good dagger he had quite come to like.

Taking the hatchet as a compensation, Jay found out it was of rare quality and it felt lighter to carry and swing than it felt when he received it. Walking over to the still open Chest, he found two sheaths for the hatchets, a scroll and a slender dagger.

The rest was clothes in oversize from what Jay could see, so he only took the first three items and closed the wooden chest.

He then walked towards the first bandits corpse and pulled it to the side. The caved in face was anything but pleasant to see, so he dropped him behind the chest and left without taking his armor or anything else.

Then he went to the other bandit that in between the fight with Mr. Th'wack had died as well.

Thanks to Jay's treatment he had puked all over himself so this armor was a no go. He simply grabbed the bandit by a feet that was not that dirty and pulled him behind the chest as well.

Taking the armor from the first one by touching it, getting it into his inventory and then pulling it out to wear it, Jay found out it was a little tight.

He still wore it, though he had to loosen all straps and even put off the chest guard.

Back next to the Tauren corpse after plundering the two bandits, Jay though about what to do with the humongous pile of meat. It was too big to hide it anywhere so Jay remembered what he did with the Ogre back then and simply stored the whole thing in his inventory.

Done with the clean up it was finally time to board the Juggernaught...