"Marco, you alright?" Riv had caught Marco as he was launched away in the blast and now lowered him to the ground. "You don't look hurt."

"I'm not, but that blast must have done something. Keep your head on a swivel."

The change was immediate and not that hard to notice. A surprised murmur rose in the crowd, and some of the captains and sailors stared down at their own weapons in horror as the steel began to shimmer. Blades that Marco could only assume were forged in the plinth-powered smithies started to glow and pulse with the same violet light as the orb.

The glow crawled along hilts and down barrels, glowing brighter and brighter. The weapons of some but not all of the men near those with the radiant weapons began to glow in a lesser way. Marco hadn't been around the town long enough to be sure, but he thought it was radiating from captains down to their crews or from crews up to their captains.

Several sets of eyes in the crowd glazed over in unison as those carrying the weapons turned toward Marco and his crew. Their expressions were hard and unnatural. Towe was among them. His cutlass glowed like a torch, casting violet light across his face.

"You should have left it," he snarled, his voice low and frantic. "You should have worshiped it."

The possessed captains began to advance, their crews falling in step behind them. Marco’s crew drew together in a fighting formation. Aethe already had an arrow notched, waiting for Marco's command. The line of advancing sailors was thick, closing in from all sides in a way that would demand lethal force to escape from. Any thought of taking down the plinth or the orb had to take a back seat to just surviving.

And then Redd roared.

The massive sailor shoved himself bodily between the two groups, planting his feet like an anchor. His sword was just steel, unlit but shining in the sun. The glowing-sword captains hesitated, their chant faltering. Marco met Redd’s gaze, and saw the flicker of clarity there. There was a defiance in the old captain that Marco had immediate faith in.

Redd’s voice lowered so only Marco and his crew could hear.

"I’m sorry, Marco. Should have listened sooner. Should have trusted you from the start and forced them. But I’ll make it right. My men and I will hold the line. Buy you time to do what you came here to do."

Marco shook his head. "Redd…"

"No arguments," Redd growled. He turned his head slightly, calling back to the sailors behind him who hadn’t been taken by Quill's trickery. "With me! Hold fast! Don’t give an inch!"

A ragged cheer went up from those still free of the orb’s influence. They pressed forward, forming a shield wall in front of Marco and his crew. Steel rang against steel as the first of the possessed struck, violet light clashing with unenchanted blades.

Marco didn’t waste the chance. He motioned to his crew, and together they sprinted for the plinth.

—

The orb loomed larger than before, nearly blinding in its intensity. Marco slashed at it, his blade striking true, but the blow skittered across the surface without leaving so much as a scratch. Riv swung his club with both hands, the impact cracking the stone beneath his feet but leaving the violet mass only mildly damaged. Elisa hurled fire and ice in quick succession, but both elements vanished into the glow as though swallowed whole. Even Aethe’s most overdrawn arrow shot vanished into the glow without piercing.

The orb pulsed harder, as if mocking their efforts. Each throb sent shockwaves through the plaza, rattling windows and knocking townsfolk to their knees. The battle cries of the possessed captains grew louder until the air itself felt thick with hostile power.

"It’s not like the others!" Elisa yelled, shielding her face from the blasts of power that radiated out from the orb. "This one’s tougher!"

Marco gritted his teeth.

"Then we’ll just have to hit it harder."

They went to work. There was no time to turn around and see how their defenders were doing. They just attacked, hoping to get ahead of the damage curve in time to save them and, by proxy, themselves. A group got around the defenders somehow, and Aethe rapid-fired into them, taking out their legs before placing a few dangerous shots to incapacitate them.

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"Will they survive?" Marco asked between strikes.

"I hope so," Aethe said. "It's not a science."

"Should I dump my strength?" Riv shouted. "I can."

"Not yet!" Elisa yelled. "It's the same increase in power no matter when you use it, but you'll be weak after that. Waiting is the best move."

They kept pounding on the orb. Whenever Marco got a point-blank shot, he pumped it into the orb. The rest of the time, he hit it as hard as he could with his sword, using Captain's Cry as often as he could to try and keep his crew at optimal output. At some point, Marco thought it would have made sense to try and take down the plinth, but that was never an option for them. The orb was covering it, and no amount of attacking would let them get through until it was down.

"Trouble," Aethe said. "It's just Redd back there now. Everyone else is down, or has run."

"Then now's the time. Marco, yell. Riv, we are counting on you."

Marco let loose his buff, and Riv swung hard, blinding them all as he burned most of his strength in one glorious last stab at success. The orb had been looking a little ragged for a while, and this seemed to blast it almost apart, but it survived.

"We failed," Marco said. "Redd! Get ready to run!"

"No!" Redd yelled back. "Keep going! That did something! Newcomers! Fight anyone with a purple weapon!"

Marco looked behind him and found that over half of the remaining combatants had suddenly awoken to some extent or another. Several of them were just dazed, but even more had immediately taken stock of what happened, referenced their own mind-controlled memories, and betrayed their former side in the fight.

"Do it!" Marco yelled. They piled on the damage, stabbing and thrusting into the orb with everything they had. Minutes passed, and Marco's buff skill refreshed, and he let it loose again. Riv was doing hardly anything now, but he gave what he had.

Finally, blessedly, the orb broke. It was one last arrow from Aethe that did the job, punching clean through it like a bullet through a balloon and sending out the shockwave that finally cleared the area. Once it cleared, the plinth was visible again, and a single desperate thrust of Marco's rapier was all it took to shatter it into multiple pieces.

—

The silence that followed was heavy. Marco’s chest burned, and his sweat stung his eyes as he looked around at the ruin of the settlement. The orb was gone and the plinth was shattered, but the cost to get to that point was high. Men and women lay sprawled across the stones, groaning or utterly still. The smell of burned things and blood was hanging heavy in the air.

Redd staggered toward them, blood streaking his arm, his face grim but alive. He planted his sword in the ground and leaned on it.

"That was worse. Being aware and sane for all that was worse." His voice was hoarse and shaky. "If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I’d have called you liars."

Marco reached out, steadying him. Elisa started applying healing to the big man, getting him stabilized fast with a touch-range spell. "You saved us, Redd."

"I didn’t believe you when I should have. That’s on me. I had to make it up to you, even though I didn't give you nearly the time you needed," Redd said.

Riv clapped him on the shoulder, nearly knocking himself sideways, and gave him a guilty look for not knowing his own strength.

"You held the line. Don’t sell yourself short."

Aethe lowered her bow. "You held your own against a superior force. Are your men alright?"

Redd gave a ragged laugh. "Aye. Most of them ran when I ordered them to. I'll have to find some replacements for a few who couldn't, sooner rather than later. But tonight? Tonight I’ll count myself lucky." He looked around at the wreckage, his face sobering. "Though not everyone’s so lucky. Something tells me there won't be a shortage of crewmen looking for new captains."

Elisa was already moving. She knelt beside the fallen, her hands glowing faintly green as she worked healing magic into wounds, sealing flesh and knitting broken bone. The sheer number of the injured made her shoulders sag, but she pressed on. Marco could tell she was triaging, spending most of her energy on the most dangerous injuries and leaving the rest to heal. It was still a lot, even with the few other healers present working their own magics on anyone they could reach.

Marco followed her gaze as she stopped by Towe. The once-arrogant captain lay sprawled, his cutlass dim, blood pooling beneath him. His chest rose shallowly.

"He’s alive?" Marco asked.

"Barely," Elisa said. Her voice was tight with concentration. She pressed her hands against his wounds, light seeping into torn flesh. "I can't tell if he'll make it. I'm out of energy. The rest is up to him."

Around them, townsfolk began to stir. Some helped. Some collapsed at the weight of what had happened. Others stared blankly at the shattered plinth.

Redd lowered himself onto a broken chunk of stone beside Marco, watching Elisa work. "This is what it costs, isn’t it? Every fight you get into. It’s not just monsters or storms. It’s people turned against you. Turned into horror."

Marco’s jaw tightened.

Redd continued, "It shouldn’t be this way. But Quill makes it that way. And until he’s stopped, this is what we’re left with."

Marco reached out and clasped Redd’s forearm. "We’ll make it right somehow. Eventually, we'll be strong enough to invade Quill's island without an army backing us up."

Redd lowered his brow.

"You need that? An army?"

"I mean, I might. Quill doesn't leave that island. If it's going to come down to a fight, we have to have a way to get to him."

"Well," Redd said. "I might just be able to help with that."