“Another one incoming!” Tucker screamed, wheeling around and taking aim at the storm spirit bearing down on him. It was a swirling mass of wind and rain, with a bit of lightning thrown in for good measure, and if it reached him, there was almost no chance of his survival. Fortunately, his storm-dispersing grenades were perfectly suited to keeping the little pseudo-elementals at bay. He fired, sending a glass globe filled with liquified earth mana infused with mercury to collide with the oncoming creature. When the grenade hit, the glass shattered, spraying the unthinking spirit with the deadly concoction.

It tore a hole into the mass of rain and lightning before exploding with dense mana that ripped the thing apart. Tucker felt the infusion of experience that told him he’d killed the thing, but he didn’t pay it any mind. Instead, he whipped his weapon in another direction before loading and firing another grenade. The results were predictable – so much so that he’d spent every moment of downtime creating hundreds more storm-dispersing grenades so as to arm his companions.

At first, the Kirrans, who usually relied on their own body enhancement skills in battle, were a little skeptical of the grenades. However, the moment they saw how easily the little potion-filled globes could deal with the storm spirits, they had begged him to create more. And he had, spending every waking moment brewing more potions until he’d run out of materials. He could improvise with the actual ingredients – not without losing some of the potion’s viability, but it could still be effective enough to warrant the grenades’ creation – but the globes were another story altogether.

Could he have used his vials and the glassware that made brewing potions possible? Certainly. But no one had offered to reimburse him for his expenses, so he wasn’t about to sacrifice the expensive glassware – not unless he found his back against a wall.

That seemed increasingly likely the further they had progressed into the Vortex. The ship itself was equipped with plenty of runecrafted enchantments that would keep it aloft even in the worst of the story, but just because the ship remained the air, that didn’t mean its passengers would survive. For that, they had to fight the storm spirits and other creatures that made their home within the Vortex.

It had been weeks since they had seen the sun, much less had more than a moment of peace. Every second was filled with howling wind and pouring rain. Lightning was a common companion as well, and the environment bred monsters that only made things that much worse. From the ubiquitous storm spirits to great wind serpents, the denizens of the storm had refused to give them even a day of relative quiet.

Without Tucker’s grenades, the Kirrans would never have survived. They’d tried to prepare, but nothing could have equipped them for the constant battle they’d found within the Vortex.

Nothing but Tucker’s alchemical expertise, at least.

Standing in the center of the ship, Tucker was in constant motion, whipping around to respond to the constant wave of assaulting spirits. He lost count of how many grenades he’d fired; in fact, he was so exhausted that he’d lost track of everything but continuously firing his weapon.

The Kirrans surrounding him were more energetic, but that was because they were using their internal mana to enhance their strength and speed while staving off fatigue. Soon enough, their reserves would run dry, and when that happened, the fight would turn sour. Tucker knew it, and so did his companions.

But what could they do except continue to fight?

It was too late to turn back. They’d already come too far, and if they tried to retreat, they’d have to endure more of the same. The only way out was through. Eventually, the Vortex would end, and they would have peace.

“This was a mistake,” Athis said from where he stood beside Tucker. He clutched a grenade in each of his huge hands and had a sack full of the valuable ordnance at his hip. It wouldn’t be enough, though. They both knew it. “We never should have come here.”

“No risk it, no biscuit!” Tucker growled.

“What does that even mean?” Athis asked, chucking a grenade at a particularly large storm spirit. The globe hit the mass of rain, wind, and lightning precisely where the big dragon-man had aimed, and the creature was dispersed only a second later. However, it was soon replaced by another, which was destroyed by another Kirran warrior.

“Just something an old football coach used to say,” Tucker said.

“What is football?” Athis asked, scanning for more threats. There were plenty of other battles across the ship, but if they were going to defend against the assault, they had no choice but to trust one another to take care of their responsibilities. It wasn’t a heroic battle that would be won by a single warrior; however, it could be lost by an individual who didn’t understand the value of collective defense.

“A game I played when I was much younger,” Tucker answered. He was about to start explaining the rules when an enormous storm spirit emerged from the dark clouds all around them. It was shaped much like the others, but it was at least a hundred times the size of anything they’d seen before. Tucker took an inadvertent step backward as he gasped at the sheer power emanating from the thing.

“Elemental,” Athis hissed. “A real one.”

Tucker didn’t need the Kirran warrior’s warning to know they were in for a different sort of battle. The storm spirits went wild, throwing themselves at the ship with renewed fury. It was as if they had been emboldened by the arrival of a true elemental. Nonsense – these sorts of spirits were incapable of thought. They were simply manifestations of raw power. Mana given form. Assigning motives and the ability to think to something like that was a good way to get killed.

Tucker used his inspection ability, and he was unsurprised when he read the results:

Storm Elemental – Level 61

“How do you want to do this?” asked Athis.

“I’ll take care of it,” Tucker said.

Athis gave him a sideways glance and asked, “Just like that? You’ll take care of it?”

“Just like that,” Tucker answered. “Watch my back, though. This might get a little messy.”

Then, without another word of explanation, Tucker stepped forward. In most situations, it would’ve been suicidal for someone like him to face off against such a powerful creature. And if Tucker made a mistake – or if he’d overestimated himself – that expectation would prove true. However, there also wasn’t much in the way of choices for him. The Kirrans all had areas of responsibilities, and with the renewed furor of the storm spirit assault, a cohesive defense was necessary. But Tucker – he was not part of their plan. If anyone was going to play hero, he was the obvious choice because, if he failed, it wouldn’t really affect the overall defense of the ship.

Of course, if his plan didn’t work, the ship would probably go down anyway. The Kirrans might win the battle, but the ship’s enchantments were already stretched to their limits. The arrival of a true elemental would soon break them entirely.

No – if they were to stand any chance, Tucker would have to play at being a hero, which left him feeling slimy in a way he couldn’t really articulate. He wasn’t opposed to doing a good deed every now and then. And in fact, he considered himself a decent person. However, after everything he’d seen, both on Earth and after being reborn into the Radiant Isles, he would have had to be naïve not to nurture a bit of a cynical streak.

And that cynicism – or realism, as he liked to think of it – told him that when someone committed to heroism, they often did so with ulterior motives. And usually, those reasons were selfish or, as he’d often seen, downright evil. So, painting himself with that heroic brush left him feeling more than a little uncomfortable.

But what else was he to do when he was the only person onboard who might have a chance to deal with that storm elemental? The Kirrans might be great in a fight, but against a force of nature like an elemental? They might as well have been insects trying to take down an elephant.

Tucker really wasn’t much better, but with his grenades, he was more like a venomous spider.

He could only hope that his bite proved as deadly as he hoped it would be.

To that end, he sprinted toward the front of the ship. As he did so, he stored his blunderbuss – which his skill [Alchemist’s Constitution] considered an alchemical tool – and summoned a massive, fleshy sack. It was at least three-feet across and absolutely full of sloshing liquid.

The sack itself had come from a creature called a boulder toad which had the disgusting tendency to vomit huge, rocky projectiles that it hurled at anything it considered a threat. The sack was where those boulders were created via some combination of biology and magic that Tucker didn’t really understand. All he knew was that it made for a perfect container for one of the most powerful potions he’d ever brewed. It didn’t simply house the concoction; instead, it augmented it by virtue of the boulder toad’s attunement.

The potion itself wasn’t so different from the storm-dispersing grenades Tucker had been using en masse since entering the Vortex. However, in its construction, he’d utilized much purer ingredients that had been sourced from far more powerful creatures, plants, and fungi. The result was a potion that had taken every last gem-like bead he’d managed to accumulate, both because of the expense of the ingredients as well as the sheer volume of potion he’d created.

He could only hope it would be worth it.

Otherwise, he wouldn’t just be out a fortune. He would probably be dead, too.

So, he couldn’t help but clench a little as he ran forward. Grabbing the bloated sack by one end, he began to twirl – not unlike when he’d done the hammer toss back on his high school track team – and after a few rapid revolutions, he let loose with the sack. It flew forward with incredible force, hitting the massive storm elemental directly in the densest part of its body.

The sack burst like an overfilled balloon – an apt comparison, really – coating the elemental in the deadly, earth-infused concoction. That was the other reason he’d chosen the boulder toad’s sack; it was equipped with some sort of natural spatial distortion that allowed it to house building-sized boulders. So, for Tucker’s purposes, it could accommodate thousands of gallons of potion.

The concoction ripped through the elemental like earthen acid, dispersing it in only a second. And just like that, it was no more.

“Well, that was a lot of build-up for not a lot of payoff,” he muttered to himself as an avalanche of experience pushed him two levels higher. One more, and he’d get to choose another skill.

“What in all the Hells was that?” Athis growled over the howling wind.

“That, my friend, is the power of a motivated alchemist,” Tucker answered, looking back with a smirk.

Athis narrowed his eyes, then said, “You are a very dangerous person. You know that, don’t you? By all rights, I should kill you now before you have a chance to turn that brain on me and mine.”

Tucker shrugged. He thought Athis was joking, but even if the big lizard was serious, he had a plan to deal with him. He wanted to trust his friend, but down that path lay ruin. He’d seen it a hundred times, even experienced it more than once. Back on Earth, trust was all well and good, but in a place like the Eternal Realm, where immortality was at stake? People would go to great lengths and betray every moral they possessed if it meant that they – or their people, as was the case with Athis – could live forever as relative gods.

“You need me too much for that,” he said. “Remember why we’re here. I’m supposed to be saving your people, right? Can’t do that if I’m dead.”

Athis didn’t have a chance to answer because, at that moment, a storm spirit descended upon him. Distracted and out of position as he was, he had no chance to defend himself.

Tucker summoned his blunderbuss, took aim, and dispersed the thing without skipping a beat. “Plus, I just saved your life,” he said.

“That’s true. Killing you would be bad form, wouldn’t it?”

“The worst.”

“Suppose I’ll have to take care of you another day, then.”

“Suppose so,” Tucker said, still smirking. He had no idea whether Athis was joking or not – perhaps the big Kirran didn’t either – but he chose to treat it like he was. After all, even if he was wrong, it would only take a second to put his plan into motion.

Still, Athis continued to stare at him for a few more seconds before shaking his head and returning to his defensive position. Straying for even a few seconds had nearly gotten him killed, illustrating the necessity for sticking to his responsibilities.

Over the next hour or so, they continued to fight against the storm spirits. Tucker lost track of how many he’d killed, but it was enough to push him to the brink of getting a new skill. Hopefully, he would have some good options when it came time to choose another ability.

However, their battle didn’t come without cost. Many Kirrans died, and Tucker himself was wounded more than once. Thankfully, he had plenty of healing potions to deal with that. Still, when the storm suddenly faded, he couldn’t help but feel a sense of relief.

That lasted only a second before he saw the two airships bearing down on them. One was familiar. In fact, it was the ship they’d been chasing the whole time. However, the other was much sleeker, and it was bristling with powerful surges of mana that suggested it was loaded with capable fighters.

Athis, who was visibly exhausted, turned to Tucker and said, “Don’t suppose you have a plan for this.”

“That’s why I brought you and your people along,” he answered. “You’re supposed to be big, bad warriors, right? Well, prove it.”

Athis perked up at that. “Is that a challenge?” he asked.

“You know what? Sure,” Tucker said. “I’m challenging you to keep us alive.”

Athis rolled his shoulders and said, “Challenge accepted.”