The weakened siren opened her mouth to try and speak but the mermaid warrior next to her hurriedly covered her mouth stopping her from using her voice to try and hypnotize them.
“We will not allow you to use any of your tricks. If you want your life to be more comfortable, speak clearly or we’ll force it out of you,” said Orman.
The siren shut her mouth and began struggling, trying to escape from the stalactite she was pinned to.
“Okay, you picked the less comfortable way. It’s fine with me just don’t complain later that customer service is lacking,” said Orman.
With a wave of his hand, two mermaids grabbed her arms and another took the arrows out of her arms the three mermaids dragged her to the back of the cave behind a few stalactites.
“We’ll be done with our interrogation in a bit you guys keep watch on the entrance and make sure that nothing tries to ambush us,” said Kaerio.
Several minutes passed where the only sound that came from behind the stalactite was that of quiet movement. The quiet voices did not reach anyone guarding the entrance.
“Stop her she’s trying to commit suicide,” came the voice of Orman breaking the silence as a struggle could be heard in the back of the room.
It was another ten minutes until the mermaids came back with the hooded siren tied up and not moving.
Akira was curious what a siren looked like and tried to get a look under the hood but was stopped by Kaerio as he pulled the hood down farther.
“Trust me you do not want to look at a siren it’s not good for your health. Ugly things,” said Kaerio shaking his head as if to get the image of the sirens face out of his mind.
“What did she say?” asked Akira.
“She’s just a low-level grunt that either doesn’t know much or won’t give any more info even if we kill her. But what we did get out of her is troubling. We need to get out of here first then I’ll explain later.” said Orman.
Akira and Co. followed the mermaids as they backtracked down the tunnel and carefully avoided the hole leading to the cave with the hiding [Electrifying electric eel] and exited the dungeon.
The support mermaids guarding the entrance and the seahorse mounts greeted them when they returned.
“Did we lose people again?” asked one of the support warriors seeing the bodies off two people brought out.
“Nothing we could do, there were some nasty things inside there. We have a bigger problem and I need you five to go back to the city and ask for reinforcements we have to go and clear a large dungeon that is close to literally exploding. While you’re at it take her with you and make sure you don’t let your guard down. Even though she is bound and gagged if she gets the chance she could cause strife between you and escape,” said Orman pushing the bound siren forward.
The support team made sure to secure the siren to a stretcher behind one their mounts making sure to use more straps than normal to be sure that she could not cause any problems.
The few warriors that had received serious wounds were also more gently strapped onto different stretchers.
“Are you going to wait here or do you want us to meet up somewhere else with the reinforcements?” asked Kaerio who had taken command of the support team.
“We’ll be waiting at Reed city. Make sure to let them know that this is no joke and the whole kingdom is in danger!” said Orman.
“Will do commander,” said Kaerio as he sat down onto his mount, “You heard the commander, we need to hurry back as fast as we can.”
***
A dark cave in a remote area of the ocean floor.
“Your majesty I have lost contact with Rease.”
“Who?”
“She is the one who was put in charge of the three connected dungeons. You sent her out to harass the pompous mermaid warriors.”
“Why are you telling me this? Get to the point.”
“Before we lost contact with her she sent a message that she had failed and was being chased by the mermaids. I’m afraid she was caught and…she might have leaked the plans…”
“Useless! Do I have to do everything myself? We can not allow them to interfere now that we are so close! Go send a message to those nearest to it and tell them to stop those damn mermaids from getting anywhere near it. If they see Rease tell them to make sure to bring her back so I can thoroughly discipline her.”
“Yes, right away, your majesty.”
***
The dungeon hunting team had reached Reed city several hours ago and had been resting and waiting for the mermaid reinforcements.
The underwater city of Reed was small as it had started out as a military fort used by the patrolling mermaids as a rest stop but it had grown into a small town with the civilians that had migrated to the city over the many years.
“….as I was saying the sirens are planning something dangerous with the old inactive volcano not far from our kingdom. The information we were able to get out of the captured siren wasn’t clear on the reasons why they are messing with it but if they succeed… the results will be too terrifying to mention. If they are able to reawaken it, it will not just affect our kingdom but it will also affect the landfolk. Earthquakes and tsunamis will be the least of our problems,” said Orman.
“Are you sure that what she gave you was not fake information to try and make you all run around in a frenzied circle,” asked Varbu.
“Trust me our ability to extract information from someone is very accurate.”
A knock on the office door interrupted their conversation and the door opened before anyone could answer.
“Commander the reinforcements have arrived. We are ready to take care of whatever problem there is that is endangering our kingdom!” said Kaerio saluting.
“Good, inform everyone we will be leaving immediately. I’ll explain the details of what we must do while we travel to the destination,” said Orman.
***
The large group of over 100 mermaid warriors on their seahorse mounts was an eye-catching sight causing both Mileena and Maya to be awestruck at the mass of glowing scales and glittering armor.
According to Kaerio they would be reaching the dormant Kapoom volcano soon.
Out in the distant water, Akira heard a melodic tune that reached his ears. The music was quite pleasing to the ears and seemed to have a nice calming effect.
“What’s this music?” asked Akira.
“Music? I don’t hear….” Kaerio stopped talking as he cocked his head listening to something that was just brought to his attention.
“Ambush! Cover your ears! Especially you two land folk males we don’t need you going crazy on us!” shouted Kaerio.
The mermaids all experienced with fighting against the sirens sound attacks always carried special earplugs to nullify them allowing them to fight normally.
Both Varbu and Akira looked at each other, not sure what to do and just decided to plug their ears with their fingers.
Multiple dark blobs appeared in the distance they were coming towards them at a fast speed.
“Defensive formation! We are strong enough to hold off anything that comes at us don’t let their tricks get to your head!” ordered Orman.
The group of enemies numbered over 100 Sharkmen. They were being led by four hooded Sirens who were swimming at the front of the group using their voices attacks to try and ensnare anyone who had their ears unprotected.
The mermaid warriors were ready for them and met the assault head-on. Crash! The two sides began the life and death struggle each one trying to kill the other.
Akira and Varbu stood to the side of the fight with their ears still plugged. They could not help much right now due to the current predicament they were in.
Mileena and Maya stood next to them ready to protect them and fight off anything that got close.
A small group of sharkmen lead by one of the Sirens spotted the out of place landfolk and decided to capture them for the true Queen of the sea as new pets for her majesties amusement.
As the large group drew closer it looked like the two girls would be forced to fight the group alone. But Akira and Varbu’s sense of honor made it so they could not stand still and keep their fingers in their ears while others fought in front of them.
They readied their weapons and hardened their hearts to ignore any sound from the sirens.
Akira watched as the Sirens mouth began to move and an extremely pleasing voice reached his ears.
[Friend’s why are you pointing your weapon at me? Have I done something to make you angry?] asked the silky voice which had to be the most beautiful voice Akira and Varbu he had ever heard.
‘Had she done anything to anger him? Not that he could remember. So why am I planning to use my sword against her?’ thought Akira.
[Why don’t you two put down your weapons and come over here we can talk this over in comfort back at my place. What do you think?]
‘No I can’t discard my weapon since I needed it to protect myself and everyone else, but I don’t need to point it at her,’ though Akira as both he and Varbu lowered their weapons still unwilling to drop them.
[See we are all friends no need to fight. Come let’s talk.]
‘Why do the mermaids hate them so much they seem to be such nice people,’ thought Akira as he stepped forward.
“You two stop those idiots from getting themselves killed!” shouted Orman after seeing what was happening he could not do anything as he was currently engaged in a fight with three different sharkemen.
“How?” asked Mileena.
“Just hit them until they snap out of it.”
“Akira, Varbu, stop!” both Maya and Mileena tried to stop them but they were shoved away.
[You wenches stop trying to interfere!] said the siren her voice gaining a sharp murderous edge when she talked to Mileena and Maya.
Akira and Varbu paused for a second due to the sudden outburst from the siren.
[Don’t worry you can ignore them and come over to me. We have so much stuff to talk about!] said the siren as she took down her hood to reveal her face.
Could such beauty really exist? Who said that sirens were ugly? Kaerio must have been lying earlier.
The two slowly moved forward in dazed dodging Mileena and Maya.
When they were halfway to the beautiful siren who held her hand out for them to reach when two green arrows shot past them.
The siren was able to dodge one of the arrows which flew by and sliced through several sharkmen hiding behind her.
But the second one pierced through her unprotected through. Causing the sound that came out of her mouth to be nothing but garbled nonsense.
Mileena dashed forward and her daggers stabbed into the Sirens chest piercing her heart and killing her in an instant before the sharkmen could even move to protect her.
The other three sirens let out screeches of anger at seeing their sister being killed.
“Disgusting,” said Mileena as she retreated.
Several mermaids leaped forward to protect the four landfolk from the enraged Sirens.
“What are you doing?” asked Akira angrily.
“She just wanted to talk,” said Varbu just as angry.
Pa! Pa! Mileena smacked Akira across the face while Maya did the same to Varbu.
“Ouch!” Pa! Pa!
“Stop that!” said Akira catching Mileena’s hand after the third hit to his face.
“Are you back to your normal self?” asked Mileena readying her other hand to smack him again.
“I’ve been my usual self the whole time. You’re the one that went crazy and started smacking me for no reason in the middle of a battle. Where did the siren go? Did we kill her?” asked Akira. For some reason, he was very hyped up his heart was pumping blood extremely fast and his body was filled with a large amount of Adrenalin.
“That thing over there hypnotized you and Varbu,” said Mileena pointing at the floating body of the dead siren.
Akira looked and immediately puked out his previous meal. The cause was both from the waning aftereffects of the sirens attack and the hideous thing the siren called a face.
Ding!
-
Toughness +3!
Where had the beautiful face of the siren gone? Was it all an illusion?
The fight died down after another siren was killed and the remaining two decided to make a hasty retreat after not finding their captured sister. They ordered the sharkmen to fight to the death to allow them to escape.
It didn’t take long for the mermaid warriors to wipe them all out the sharkmen had become nothing more than a barbaric mob without the orders from the sirens.
Akira and Varbu walked over to Orman who was cleaning his weapon and checking his warriors to see how many injuries or deaths they had suffered.
“You two are lucky you have such good bodies. Otherwise, your hearts would have exploded due to the nature of the sirens voice attacks. It causes your body to go into overdrive trying to fight the sound that is tricking your brain until it can no longer handle it and it bursts,” said Orman.
“Sorry, this was my first time ever experiencing something like that,” said Akira sheepishly rubbing the back of his head.
“It is also my fault as well since I did not give you anything to protect yourself against their attacks I didn’t plan on them ambushing us. Here take these. I can’t guarantee that we can protect you if it happens again,” said Orman handing both Akira and Varbu an extra pair of earplugs.
Orman turned to the mermaid warriors and gave an order, “Everyone wounded head back to Reed city and inform them of what happened. Everyone else will follow me and we will continue towards Kapoom.”
