The Starside

            Lydia was running full tilt. Feet slamming into concrete, turning a one minute run into a thirty second sprint to the sheriff's office. She burst inside and grabbed the egg from the vault. Then she sprinted back, holding the highly unwieldy blue egg. Everything burned and everything hurt but she made it back to the fight, just a minute after she’d left. There was a Prehistoric bird running around on the beach, Aloice was nowhere to be seen but gunshots kept on coming from somewhere, and the eldritch knight was looking significantly worse for wear.

            The moment Lydia left Samantha and Aloice sprung into action along with Mitchel. Mitchel found a spot to lay low and fire pot shots at the Peryton, Aloice did the same. Their bullets did… something, but it wasn’t a lot. Samantha on the other hand turned into an axebeak bird and ran after the Peryton. Determined to help and make up for her mistakes she’d made yesterday. The fight between the man with two swords and the Peryton was fierce. Claws slashing, swords cutting deep, and neither side was ready to back down. The Peryton leapt up onto the bakery roof to get the advantage, the man with two swords smirked and jumped all the way to the roof, continuing the fight there.

            Samantha, having transformed into a flightless bird, climbed up the side of the building as a creature that was not made to climb. But she was determined. Determined and stupid. By the time she made it up there the Peryton had knocked the guy with two swords off the roof and dove after him. Samantha out of breath climbed back down and ran at the Peryton determined. That’s when Lydia got back holding the blue egg, plopping it down on the sandy beach. The Peryton realized right away what was happening, and in a pulse of dark red energy the transference was commencing. The egg began to glow blue. Lydia cracked down on the egg with her axe but only managed to crack it a little. Samantha, realizing the situation, ran over to the egg. The axebeak bird reared her head back to smash the egg with her strong beak. And she missed, digging her head into the sand.

            “SAMANTHA!” Lydia shouted, realizing who this ridiculous bird was. In one surge of energy the Peryton lunged at the man with two swords, grabbing his torso with its teeth and its legs with its talon and pulling him apart. The knight was immediately dead, and could no longer stop the Peryton from dashing for the egg. Lydia smashed it with the Axe once again, but it wasn’t a good enough hit, but Samantha had enough time to attack the egg just before the Peryton bore down on them. With a mighty swing with her beak she smashed it into the egg and glowing Egg goo splashed everywhere as she destroyed what was inside. The Peryton let out a terrible screech. Samantha and Lydia did not look back as they sprinted away from the Peryton as fast as they could. The peryton managed to get a few claws in, just enough to terribly injure the two and make them falter long enough to get caught.

            Before the Peryton snatched them up in its claws another gunshot rang out and the Peryton whipped around to See Aloice standing in the middle of the beach and firing his gun right at it. In a fit of rage the Peryton began to charge at Aloice. Aloice was uncharacteristically calm, reloading and firing with calculated precision. Although Aloice was ANYTHING BUT CALM on the inside. He was screaming and crying internally as he fired his gun as fast as he could. Just as the Peryton spread its wings to launch itself at Aloice he took one breath out and fired. The bullet went right through the Perytons skull and the red light in its eyes went out as it crashed to the ground lifeless. The Peryton was dead. Samantha and Lydia ran up to Aloice who was staring at the dead creature blankly.

            “That was, huh oh my god I can’t catch my breath.” Samantha groaned, now back in her kobold form.

            “Great- great job.” Lydia said, clapping Aloice on the shoulder.

            “We did it.” Aloice said quietly, “that was horrifying!”

            “Yea but, we got him.” Lydia smiled weakly.

            “Holy shit you kids did it.” Mitchel said, appearing from where he’d been taking cover behind a trash can. “Too bad about the eldritch knight though, it’s gonna be a pain in the ass to revive him. Expensive too." The Sheriff coldly walked forward and cut off one of the Eldritch knights fingers with a small knife, and then wrapped it up in a plastic bag he pulled out of his coat. “I’ll make him pay for his own damn resurection.”

            “He did most of the work on the Peryton here, give him some credit.” Aloice said.

            “He didn’t even wanna do it until I told him what I'd pay him, he's a bastard that only cares about money and fame. He’ll get his money but he won’t get his fame. I’ll tell the town it was you three. You’ll get compensation too, how does 300 gold each sound?”

            “What!” Samantha squeaked, her eyes widening at the thought of that much money. “How much is that in American Dollars?” 

            “About a thousand each I think.” he scratched his head. “Oh and Galaxy girl, you should take those swords, they’re pretty badass.” 

            “Wont he miss those swords?” Lydia asked as Samantha vibrated with excitement bright by her.

            “Nah, guy as rich as this can get a new weapon every week, he won’t care. Plus I bet those things are chock full of magic.” Mitchell replied, “you three go ahead and rest, Maud’ll be a problem for another day.”

            So that’s what they did. The seafoam rest was open now. With some friends of Adeline’s running it while she took some time. But they knew of what Samantha Lydia and Aloice did so they refused to take payment from them. Feeding them for free. Although at some point while Aloice performed a honestly breathtaking dance and storytelling of how they defeated the Peryton to the tavern Lydia Slipped out to go next door. She knocked on Adeline's door and waited.

            “I told you only emergen- oh… hi.” Adeline looked worse for wear, bags under her eyes and she’d obviously been crying at some point recently.

            “I’m sorry for the intrusion. But I wanted to let you know in person. We got the bastard. It won’t hurt anyone ever again. Adeline just nodded, her face blank.

            “That brings me… I don’t know what it brings me. I’m just glad it’s gone.” and with that Adeline closed the door. Lydia stood there for a moment before she went back to the tavern where everyone was applauding Aloice’s amazing performance. Lydia decided to rest up. This wasn’t quite over yet until they knew that Maud was gone as well. But she would let the other two have their fun.

            Samantha got shitfaced again and was given another one of those sobering drinks. The only side effect being that it makes you really sleepy. So Samantha was on top of a table snoozing and Aloice had to take her upstairs to her room before he himself went to his room and fell asleep. After the battle with the Peryton the three of them got stronger. And when they all awoke they felt it, and extra power, that wasn’t there before. They’d all felt it before, after they fought the seagulls, but now it was different. They all had a little bit extra. Although it was more noticeable with Samantha.

            “Lydia?” Lydia heard. She jolted to wakefulness and looked around her room. Nobody was there. But she’d heard Samantha's voice like it was in her ear. “Lydia can you hear me?” 

            “Who the fuck said that?” Lydia shouted, grabbing one of her new short swords that she’d taken from that man.

            “I think I just heard you say something from your room, looks like you can’t talk in my head but I can talk in yours.” Samantha giggled to herself.

            “Oh my god, Samantha I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU ABUSE THIS POWER!” Lydia shouted.

            “Ok ok! I wont… probably.” Samantha replied in Lydia's mind. Lydia just grumbled and got dressed. Lydia was the first to set foot into the tavern level, looking to get some breakfast. Although Mitchel was there nursing a drink.

            “A bit early to be getting a drink.” Lydia said, sitting down next to the sheriff.

            “Yea. not every day a Peryton’s wife rides up to a dock in a whale carcass and demands to see his murderers." he replied.

            “Thought we’d have a little more time than that.” Lydia sighed.

            “I guess the sea witch just works that fast.” Mitchel shrugged, “there’s not a massive rush though, she gave us until the end of the day before she’d raise hell but it’s morning, so let your friends rest.”

            “I guess we’ll need it since we don’t have some dual sword man to save the day.” Lydia shrugged. The morning was quiet. The trio came down one by one, heard the news, ate, and before long they were geared up and ready to go. The three of them made their way to the docks, and they could smell it before they could see it. Rot. pungent rot. Drifting over the town like fog. And somehow the sight was even worse than the smell. The small black beady eyes of the whale were lifeless, there was no shine to them. And the decaying top of it showed rows of sharp spiny bones. The gray flesh of the beast sagged and seemed like it could fall off at any moment. Samantha was especially disgusted. This whale had been murdered, and then its body had been denied rest at the bottom of its home ocean. Now it was the vessel of a witch, who had a swarm of birds circling overhead. Seagulls, pigeons, albatross, and even vultures who eyed the dead whale but managed to stay away. Samantha could tell they were afraid.

            “Let’s go kill this witch.” Samantha mumbled as they walked towards it. The mouth of the whale opened like a drawbridge onto the doc. And the trio paused in front of the mouth, able to see inside the hollowed out whale carcass. “Give me your hands?” Samantha asked, holding her claws out for Lydia and Aloice. The two did as Samantha instructed and Samantha started some kind of mental phone call. 

            “This way we can talk to each other without speaking out loud.” Samatha’s mind said into her companions' minds.

            “This is weird.” Lydia told the other two mentally “let’s just hope we don’t die.”

            “Don’t worry, we’ve got this.” Aloice assured. The three of them let go of each other's hands and stepped onto the fleshy ground of the whale. The mouth closed behind them. The inside of the whale was pink and raw, full of wooden boxes and ropes that held parts of the Whale’s structure together. But once they made their way past that, there was a large open space. One one end, sitting on a fleshy throne was Maud. she was most assuredly unnatural. Her body was humanoid, but a large beak extended from where her mouth would have been, she had metal talons on the end of each of her limbs, and she had the eyes of a hawk.

            “You killed my love.” she said in a gravely voice.

            “We did.” Lydia answered, holding her swords a little tighter.

            “I will find a way to bring him back, nothing can keep me from my love. Your efforts have been futile.”

            “I’ll make sure you can’t bring him back, that way I can have pity on the creature and he won’t have to see your ugly face ever again.” Samantha growled. Maud growled and her eyes glowed red as she stared at Samatha. Something magical happened and Samathas eyes rolled up into her head and she collapsed, not breathing. Both Aloice and Lydia felt the mental connection between all of them snap off.

            “You bastard!” Lydia roared, raging and rushing forward with her sword. Maud just waved her hand and a pair of massive albatross flew down and intercepted Lydia while Maud got to her feet. Aloice Pulled Samatha behind a pile of boxes and poured a health potion into her mouth. There were a few terrifying moments where Samantha still wasn’t breathing, but then she gasped and she was awake, although looking worse for wear.

            “Don’t look in her eyes!” Samantha projected into Lydia's head. Relief spread through Lydia's body as she realized Samatha wasn’t dead and began to fight the crazed albatross. Samantha got to her feet and stumbled out from behind the boxes. She raised a hand which Frank landed on, and Frank took a spell from Samatha and flew forward at Maud. the sea witch didn’t have time to react as Franks claws raked across one of Maud’s metal hands and the magic transferred over to it. In an instant the metal hand turned a bright cherry red and the flesh that had grown around it began smoking. Maud began screaming.

            “GET THAT BASTARD!” she screeched. A flock of Pigeons dove down and began flying after Frank who landed on Samantha’s shoulder. Aloice began to fire bullets at Maud from his hidden spot among the stacked boxes. Maud just shrieked and staggered to her feet, running at Lydia who had just finished the Albatross off. Lydia turned, seeing maud, and kept her eyes on Maud’s torso, determined not to fall for the same spell that had almost killed Samantha. She swung her sword as maud and missed, but with the new power she had gained she swung her other sword and this time connected, cutting a deep gash into Maud’s side. Maud screeched in pain, but she was determined to retaliate. With her other hand that wasn’t blazing hot she grabbed Lydia’s hair and pulled her head up to meet her eyes. Lydia felt the vile energy fill her body as she tried to resist. But the same thing happened to her. Lydia's eyes rolled back into her head and she collapsed, not breathing.

            Samantha squeaked and ran towards Lydia, preparing a healing spell. Maud was about to run after Samantha but another bullet struck true into her ribs, and she whipped around to see Aloice peeking out from behind a box. Maud sent the flock of Pigeons after Aloice this time, choosing to focus on the two in front of her. Samantha made it to Lydia, thankfully to the distraction, and cast the healing spell on Lydia. Green druidic energy filled the elves' body and she jolted to life, breathing once more. Her eyes filled with rage and her muscles bulged as she charged Maud, not caring about being weak from whatever death spell Maud had cast. Maud screamed again as she tried to dodge the attack from Lydia but the burning metal hand increased in intensity, allowing for Lydia to slice at her, leaving another massive gash.

            Vultures descended from the sky and attacked Samatha, cutting deep gashes into her flesh and causing her to lose concentration on the spell. Maud's hand cooled down, no longer damaging her, but now a useless lump of metal. Mauded turned and screeched in rage, swinging her claws at Lydia in front of her, scoring a long wound in Lydia's Flesh. But Before Maud could attack again another bullet pierced her side. This time she had no idea where the attack had come from. The half elf was slippery.

            “I’ll kill you all!” she screeched. Samantha once again gave a spell to Frank, this time aiming for a much more difficult target. The metal chains that Maud wore around her neck. Maud say Frank coming and prepared to attack him but Lydia was able to shove her off balance, giving Frank just enough room to scrape his claws on the metal jewelry. Maud shrieked as her neck burned. She tried to take it off but the heat had already partially melded it into her skin. The entire flock of birds descended now, in an attempt to save their master. Samantha, truly on death's door from Maud’s spell earlier and the two Vultures in front of her, couldn’t do anything. She didn’t have time to cast any kind of healing spell before the ravenous beasts would be on her. Then there was another bang of a gunshot and Maud fell to one Knee. Lydia swung both her swords but even the injured Maud was just barely able to dodge the blows. 

            Samantha had only one option. With the strength she had left she turned the heat up on the necklace just a little more. And with a Screech Maud burst completely into flames. Dying almost instantly as the jewelry burned into her chest and destroyed her heart. The birds that had been descending just began to flap around very confused as if they suddenly didn’t know where they were. And in just a few seconds the birds began to disperse. Samantha just collapsed to the ground in exhaustion. The fight had felt much longer than it actually was, probably because Samatha kind of died in the middle of it. Lydia however staggered to her feet, and sheathed her swords.

            “That’s that.” Lydia grumbled, glancing around. Without Maud’s magic the whale immediately began to decay further. The Vultures and various birds picking at its flesh, and the overall structure of the whale beginning to break down. After having a minute to recover the Trio began to search the whale. The dozens of wooden crates full of random shit as well as the piles of random shit that did not have a crate to call home. Lydia found what looked to be a wallet, belonging to someone who lived in Missouri. Maybe Maud had killed him. She tucked the wallet away for later. Samantha didn’t find anything. She didn’t really have the heart to search through much though. Aloice on the other hand, he found something very interesting.

            The pendant that Aloice pulled out of the pile was covered in grime. But with a quick Spell he was able to clean off the grime. It was a beautiful red gem pendant, set into intricate carved silver. Aloice just shrugged and put the pendant around his neck. Thinking nothing of it. Then the trio left the whale carcass and returned to Seafoam rest. It was a heroes reception. The three of them were given free food, free drink, and everyone wanted to hang around them. Samantha drank until she couldn’t feel the injuries she sustained, while Aloice did an even better performance than he had last night. He was singing, dancing, and doing an incredible job. Lydia on the other hand began flirting with some girl at the bar, and eventually the two went up to Lydia's room. That night, after the partying was over the rest of the party returned to their rooms and fell asleep.

            Samantha had not taken the sobering potion the night before. So now she was suffering from a MASSIVE headache. Frank, who could now connect with Samantha mentally, poured out Sympathies for Samantha who groaned and tried to go back to sleep. Frank, being a loyal companion, hopped out of the window that Samantha left open for him, and trotted over to Lydia's room right next door Via the wooden beams that stuck out from the taverns wall. Frank was about to scratch on the window when he saw Lydia, and one of the women from the party, engaging in… some kind of activity while naked. Frank, having no idea what he just witnessed, but figured Lydia was buddy and went over to Aloice’s room and scratched on the window. Aloice had been sitting on the bed, wearing a white nightgown when he looked over at the window to see Frank. Aloice went over and opened up his window.

            “Hello friend, what are you doing?” Aloice asked as Frank trotted inside.

            Using a similar ability to what Samantha had, Frank projected his thoughts into Aloice’s mind. Although it was more like impressions and vague words. Aloice got the impression of misery, as well as the words, “Samantha hurt.” and then Frank imitated a hungover Samantha by flopping on the floor and groaning.

            “Samantha’s hurt?” Aloice asked in a panic. Frank, getting the sense that he hadn’t quite said the  right thing, acted quickly.

            “Samantha, head, hurt.” Frank said into Aloice’s mind.

            “Oh… her head hurts… she must be hung over! She didn’t get the magical sober potion.” Aloice concluded. Frank squeaked and happily hopped around in a circle. “I’ll see about getting her some food.” Aloice then shooed Frank out and began to get dressed. Frank trotted back. Glancing back into Lydia's room to see that they were still doing the activity, before returning to Samantha’s room. Then Frank sidled up to the still in pain Samantha and curled up next to her.

            Soon Aloice entered the room with a tray of food. Scrambled eggs and orange juice. “Samantha, Frank let me know you’re feeling a little under the weather.” Aloice smiled, setting the tray down. Samantha raised her head and looked at the food.

            “Mmm.” Samantha grumbled, sitting up and beginning to eat the food, as well as drink the orange juice.

            “I had an interesting dream last night.” Aloice said suddenly. The hungover Samantha just looked at him, hoping he wouldn’t talk too loudly. “So I was watching from a distance in this dark void. And there was this guy there, shrouded in darkness who kept calling me Nico and asking where I was. I told him that my name was Aloice because I’m obviously not Nico. Then I woke up. Isn’t that weird?”

            “That.. normally I’d say it’s just a dream. But I used to be just a human.” Samatha thought, “we should find someone to give your amulet a look.”

            “Sure! That sounds cool.” Aloice beamed.