Standing before them was a very grossly bloated form of their runaway Pirate Captain.
Pirate Captain Rend (Adept Water Human) Lv. 25
Special Ability: Bursting - Slowly losing 1% health every 3 seconds, damaging enemies in a 5-yard radius for water damage.
Bloated - Movement speed reduced but increased defensive properties
Unending Rage - Ignores all enemies but the one with the highest damage done
Explosion - If able to attack an enemy, explodes and deals lethal damage to all enemies in a 100-yard radius
~Finding a secret path into the Shrine, Pirate Captain Rend drank the potion left by Water Aspect Brach and his body could not handle the stress of the Water Aspect's boon. Leaving him a malformed mix between human and elemental on the brink of death. Only his rage at the meddling kids who caused his retreat keeps him alive.~
"Oh hey, it's a Scooby Do reference! Nice!" Sol read the description of the boss enemy in front of them to the glares and eye rolls of his female group members.
As for the pirate captain, it noticed their presence and roared which more sounded like an extremely loud gurgle in his current state. Lumbering towards them, it was slower than it had been when it was just a human but the threat of the explosion kept them all backing away from the grotesque abomination.
Knowing that they couldn't back up too far or risk being in a corner and not being able to avoid being attacked and instantly wiped out, Sol ran towards the side and shocked the girls into following behind.
They were all able to get out of range from both Rend's melee range and the Bursting radius and while his walking speed was slow, it was only in comparison to his original speed as a human which was fairly speedy. In his current form, he would be slightly faster than they would be able to run. However; with Luna's familiar coming with a built-in slow, the fight was actually incredibly boring.
While Sol was practically useless in terms of damage, the slow-moving Rend was gunned down by the three ladies and everyone's familiars. Combined with the self-damage from Bursting, it took the group just shy of 5 minutes for Rend to go down.
As soon as Pirate Captain Rend's health emptied out, his bloated form started to expand and everyone had clearly become lax over the last 5 minutes so as soon as this changed happened they all covered their faces.
Sssshblamm!
An enormous explosion of water, fog, and flesh caused everyone in the party to lose almost 80% of their total health. Everyone on the ground groaned in pain as they all got up and were incredibly grossed out.
Sol just laughed as they all were drenched from the explosion of water, Eilyria popped her head out from Sol's pocket and was safe from the commotion. Defending himself from an arrow from both the archers while Minerva just giggled as she and Eilryia worked together to heal everyone up.
Gathering their group after everyone In the mini water-filled crater floated a palm-sized light blue sigil that changed shape constantly.
~Congratulations! You've cleared the trials of Brach's Shrine and obtained Water Aspect's Blessing.~
Water Aspect Brach's Blessing
Adept Special Item (Permanent Consumable)
All water-based damage and healing abilities are increased by 10%
Favorability of all Brach's followers at max
Obtain Special Ability - Twin Fog Emperors
Amazed by the blessing, Sol complained. "Awww that's so cool!!! Why couldn't it have been a Light Aspect's shrine? I want a badass sounding ability like that."
"Pffft. Even if we did find a Light Aspect Shrine, it would go to Minerva first anyway." Diana commented which brought Sol to his knees and cried.
While Eilyria and Minerva did their best to console the fake crying Sol, Luna walked up to the boon which floated to her chest and combined with her body. A special notification popped up just as she absorbed the blessing which basically said that she wouldn't be able to bind with any more blessings and outlined the Twin Fog Emperors ability.
Special Ability: Twin Fog Emperors - Summon two Fog Emperor elementals to battle for 1 minute
Cooldown: 1 day
~Brach's perfected Fog Elementals after many trials, may they serve the Chosen An'Elari well~
Luna could feel the curious gaze of the rest of her teammates and sighed as she summoned the Twin Fog Emperors. As Luna cast the ability, two swirls of air began to form on the ground. Swiftly the air around the swirls began to gather more and more water, then two elementals that looked a lot like the Fog Guardians they fought before but about half a foot taller and much more solidified. Wearing gleaming light blue armor trimmed in gold, one of the Fog Emperors was equipt with a spear and shield while the other was wielding a large ornate staff with a flowing stream of water and air swirling around it.
Many Oooos and Ahhhs and claps sounded out as the Fog Emperors stood defending Luna and by extension them as well. They were all glad to see that such a powerful blessing and ability was worth all the time invested and the tough elementals with 0 loot to drop albeit the last big which was unexpectedly easy.
Noice!
Dispersing the Fog Emperors skill early, the group was tired and quickly navigated towards the beach which took much less time to get to than their trek to the shrine in the first place. Within an hour's time, they met up with the Seabreeze crew which had finished the repairs on our ship Aqua and reported that no other pirates had come by.
At this point, the fog surrounding the island had all disappeared and the island started to have these mini earthquakes so they all boarded the ship and made their way back to the town. Tired from their ordeal, Sol laid on the ship floor and enjoyed the calm sea while the girls and their familiars happily chatted about the encounters we had faced in the shrine.
Oddly enough, their entire trip back was met with few Skaldyr which were promptly shooed off by their presence.
As they got to the harbor, everyone got off the ship and Minerva asked quietly. "So how do we keep the boat? Do we just have to come back here anytime we need to go out to sea?"
Luna shook her head. "Ahh that, well truth be told the ship is much like a shared ability between our group and can be summoned and stored by any of us but only one Aqua ship can be called out at any one time. Usually, groups or clans can have several ships for naval fights later on but we should be fine for the time being."
"You're not half bad for An'Elari, pretty rare to visit an Aspect's shrine. A good tale to tell to all my friends back home. Anyway, hope to see you all in the future, hopefully, a bit less eventful next time." Waving goodbye, Melantha and the rest of the Seabreeze crew went back to their warehouse house.
Before logging of themselves, Sol mentioned to the goddess sisters. "We should totally meet up for lunch or something one of these days!"
Furrowing her brow, Diana was still a bit guarded about meeting in real life. While she was fine with playing with the brother and sister duo, it changed when they knew who they were and the position they held. Looking over at her sister, Diana saw the yearning look in Minerva's eyes despite knowing that it wasn't the best idea.
"I'd have to ask our mother for permission first. But maybe sometime in the future, we have something to do later today so we will talk later." Happy that her sister didn't outright reject the idea, Minerva smiled and waved as the two sisters logged off.
Alex woke up feeling the familiar feel of a rumbling stomach. Stretching, he didn't forget that he was meeting up with his old boss along with Melody. Somewhat nervous about meeting his boss and the abrupt leaving of his cafe job which he actually enjoyed aside from the rude customer every now and then.
Unsure of what the meeting was for, Alex just shrugged as he went over to Melody's room and knocked on the door. Hearing Melody call out to wait a bit for her to finish dressing, Alex patiently leaned against the wall near her door.
Melody opened the door wearing a light blue sundress that she hadn't worn in a couple of years now but complimented her calm and stoic demeanor. "Let's go soon or we'll be late meeting Jack."
Deciding to walk there to chat for a bit before their meeting time, Alex asked. "You know boss' first name? I asked before but he always went by boss when I worked for him."
"I told you before, didn't I? Jack was the one who helped me after you had gotten into a coma and passed away. Maybe as a way to look after his old employee's family or something. I always treated him as a caring uncle for the most part and he eventually told me to call him Uncle Jack."
Alex texted his boss a few minutes before they would arrive at the cafe so as soon as they got to the cafe his old boss met them at the door.
Nervously greeting his old boss, Alex was still a bit nervous. "Hiya boss, long time no see."
"About time you visited me you damn brat, making me clean up after your mess." Jack looked over to Melody who stood quietly behind Alex and just cracked a smile. "But I'm sure you have your reasons so don't look all scared. Anyway come on in, I cooked up enough for all of us. You should tell me what you've been up to these days."
Walking into the cafe's main room, the previously destroyed tables, broken glass, and bloodstained had long been cleaned and replaced. Walking past the room, they all entered a back room that was normally off-limits to anyone but the boss.
In the smaller room was a large table fit for roughly 8 people. The table itself was filled with large dishes of from a large bowl of steaming soup, a few plates of veggies in different sauces, and of course meats from a large chicken giving off a savory smell to a couple perfectly charred steaks.
Three of the 8 seats were already filled by the time they came into the room, two of them being extremely familiar to Alex and Melody as they had seen these two sisters not too long ago. Between the two sisters was someone a bit shorter than both of them but clearly similar in looks to the two sisters.
Just as shocked as they were, Diana and Minerva shouted out. "Sol and Luna?! What are you two doing here?!"
Confused as to why the sisters and their younger relative were there, Alex also questioned. "I could ask you the same, how do you know the Boss?"
Just then the gruff voice of Jack laughed. "Ahhh right, I haven't invited you to my dinner dates before. This is my friend Julia and her daughters. But judging by your reactions, you already know each other. Come sit, we can talk more while the food is still hot."
Having a coughing fit, Alex had a double-take as he looked at the small woman between the two sisters. "Mother?! But you look so young and radiant to be a mother!"
Blushing and waving her hand shyly, Julia shook her head shyly. "Oh, you sweet-talker you. You must get all the ladies talking like that, no wonder my daughters have been taken by you. My name is Julia Young, nice to meet you!"