The sloop quickly approached the stranded sailors in the water. Xalmann steered the wheal, but he wasn't an expert in sailing by a long shot. This was his first time doing so. The others didn't seem that experienced either. They worried they might not make it to the sailors before the sharks did.

"Take the wheal." Xalmann called to Zarius.

The ship had drawn just close enough. Xalmann raised a clawed hand into the air and conjured a ball of fire larger than a person's head and lobbed it at the water between the fins of the sharks and the drifting sailors. He wasn't sure how much damage he could actually do to the creatures almost entirely submerged in water, but he hoped this could at least slow them down for a moment long enough for the boat the overtake them.

The fire struck the water with a hiss and a puff of steam. The water boiled for a few seconds before the heat was mixed with the rest of the cold ocean water. The shark that had been in the lead thrashed in pain for a moment. It must have just been close enough to be burned by the boiling water. The other sharks turned to avoid the area before continuing toward the sailors. It had slowed them down slightly, at least. The Lizardman just hope Edward could use some of his abilities to try to delay them as well.

"On it!" Zarius swaps places with Xalmann. He would have to rely on the lizardfolk and Edward to fight anything out here. Range was not his thing, though punching a shark was always a dream of his.

Despite their best efforts, their vessel was in pretty rough shape and the sail was barely more than scraps at this point. There was no way to outpace the sharks at this rate.

He racked his brain for a plan. Anything at all. 

Flop. 

A fish had jumped accidentally jumped out of the water onto the deck of their ship. 

Zarius' face lights up with an idea. He grabs the fish and smacks it hard against a broken piece of the rail. The fish goes limp and starts bleeding from the wound. While still gripping the helm, Zarius whips the bloodied fish into the water to the side of their own vessel in hops that the sharks would pick up on the fresh blood. It probably wouldn't be immediate, but with any luck it would divert them before they reached the sailors. 

Said sailors look across the water and spot them approaching. One stands and waves and shouts, but it's hard to make out what he's saying from this distance. They were alive for now at least. 

Edward can see the numerous monster outs sea creatures heading towards the small rowboat and the boat he’s currently on. “Brace yourselves! Looks like we’re in some deep trouble here.” Edward hears the sound of wood smacking on flesh, he turns around to see Zarius smacking some of these creatures doen into the deck of the ship. He can see that Xalmann is taking the ranged approach and is firing balls of fire at the sea to boil some of these creatures alive, “Keep on firing, Xalmann. It’s driving them back.”
Three of the sharks have broken off of the main pack of sharks that are heading towards the rowboat and are currently chomping down on parts of the lower ship that Edward is on. Edward summons a glyph of light from his hand and throws it towards the area of where the 3 sharks are at. The glyph flies above the sharks and enlarges to cover the area the sharks are at. Rays of light shines down from the glyph and pierces through the flesh of the sharks. The sharks thrash around in the water and dive down into the water to escape the rays of light.
Edward shouts at the rowboat, “Bunker down in the center of your boat. We’ll try to get there as fast as we can.”

The sailors look relieved at the arrival of their boat and the retreat of the sharks thanks to the combination of Edward and Xalmann's magic. They wave and shout to the group.

"Oh, thank the gods, someone came to rescue us, lads!" one of them calls, a man clinging to the side of the overturned rowboat with a bushy grey beard and short grey hair. He looks a bit old.

"We thought we were shark bait!" another sailor cries, with black hair and a short beard.

"Hey, isn't that sloop your father's? Sorry, father-in-law's?" a redheaded sailor asks, looking at the black-haired sailor.

After a few moments, the boat gets close enough that the men can abandon the rowboat and climb up the ladder on the side of the sloop to the relative safety of the deck. They all breathe a great sigh of relief to be out of the freezing water and away from the hungry sharks. They're still cold and soaking wet, but they can't complain to the people that just saved their lives. Still though, they're a bit worried about getting back to land. The storm doesn't seem to have died down at all, and they're only safe right now because they're in the eye of the storm. They didn't know how much longer this storm will last.

"Thank you for the rescue. I'm Gerald. I'm guessing you didn't steal this here boat from my wife, right?" the black haired sailor says as he shakes each of their hands. "She sent you to save us and lent you the boat?"

"You are not rescued yet. We still need to return to shore and that," he points at the storm, "is not going to disappear any time soon it seems."

He looks at Edward who seems to have a handle on the sharks. They were just dumb beasts after all, they would lose interest if their prey put up too much of a fuss. The storm was still the biggest issue. Going back through it would be begging to be capsized and they had more liabilities on board now. 

He taps his foot as he considers their options. They could try and stay in the center of the storm until it loses energy, but who knows where it would take them or how long that would be. They did not have many supplies on board for an extended journey across the seas.

Looking around, there was no land to take cover on and no break in the clouds to chase after. They were at the storm's mercy and...was that an island??

He could have sworn there was no land in sight, but then appearing out of the rough waters and the mists of the storm is a hulking form that jutts out of the waters. Any other sharks still lingering in the water suddenly turn away from their vessels and swim in the opposite direction from this abnormal landform. 

"This is getting weird, do the rest of you see that?" Zarius points out at the thing. 

It starts to move towards their vessels and, as such, they get a better look at it. What first looked like a mobile island is actually the hulking shell of some sort of gargantuan turtle creature swimming through the water. The thing was at least a hundred feet across and possibly twice as long from tip of head to tip of tail. 

It remains unclear if the creature is here to help, or to eat them as a snack. 

Edward was finishing fending off the sharks that were nibbling at the boat when he hears movement coming out from the west. He turns his head and Edward can see a gargantuan figure rising out of the water, a massive turtle, that is currently swimming towards their way. The beast seems to be attracted to the commotion that the group was stirring up and has now decided to crash the party, so to speak.
Edward shouts at the group, “Seems like we got bigger problems than just the sharks! We need to get out of here! The beast is too big to kill and is probably equally as strong as it is tough. I’ll try to slow it down but I’m not sure my capabilities are enough.” Edward summons blue mist from his hand and gathers it into a ball. He throws the ball at the turtle’s direction and the ball directly hits it, surrounding the monster in dark blue mist. The turtle seems to slow down and it no longer had the same momentum it had when swimming towards the boat.
Edward knows that this would last for a moment, so he summons a glyph of golden light from his hand and throws it above the beast. The glyph expands and covers the area above the beast, raining down rays of golden light down upon the turtle. The rays hit the shell of the turtle, not managing to pierce through its skin.

Xalmann was shocked by the appearance of the Dragon Turtle. His tribe had worshipped the idol of one of these creatures in the sacred cave, even sacrificing offerings to it often in its name. They'd thought of the dragon turtle as their god before Dagon had come and fooled them all, usurping the position of their deity. The dragon turtle had never answered their prayers, but Dagon had, and for all to hear from the totem at the center of their village. He'd answered their questions and given them advice, hardly asking for anything in return until the night he ordered them to walk through fire to fight the ones who had stayed loyal to the dragon turtle. Xalmann had been one of the fools swayed by Dagon's words and followed him. He regretted it greatly.

Even now, though, he would not return to worshipping the dragon turtle. He refused to worship any god since experiencing such fierce betrayal from one. He wondered a little what might have happened to the idol back in his village's cave. He'd never gone back to the remains of his village since being taken away from there. Perhaps it had been plundered by someone, possibly even Granth. It didn't matter. He didn't need it or care for it anymore.

Xalmann walked to the edge of the deck and summoned a fireball in his hand. This dragon turtle was just like any other giant creature to him now, and this one threatened his life along with all the others on this boat. Even if was once a god in his eyes, he'd fight it now just like any other beast that threatened his life. He launched the fireball toward the dragon turtle's head, his face showing no emotions at all.

---

Fire Bolt

Oh boy, guess they were fighting this thing. 

Zarius can't do much as far as range is concerned so he starts delegating tasks to the terrified sailors. He gets one of them to snap out of their terror at seeing the giant dragon turtle long enough to take the helm while he gets others started on making hasty repairs to the sails and searching below deck for paddles. 

The dragon turtle shakes its massive head when it's smacked with the spells. It snorts and roars in irritation then dives down below the surface of the water causing a rippling wave to rush towards the ship. 

Their vessel is pushed across the eye of the storm and starts drifting towards the storm's edge once again as the dragon turtle slowly swims towards them. 

"You need to keep that thing away from us until we have finished repairs! We can not survive the storm like this!" Zarius shouts at the two casters as he drags up a spare sail from down below and starts hauling it up the mast with the help of the other sailors. 

One of the sailors starts paddling desperately. How much it's helping is debatable but he's at least trying his very best. 

Edward feels the boat rock back and forth from the waves that the dragon turtle was creating. Edward places his hand on the railing of the ship to stabilize himself despite wanting to lie down from feeling queasy. He takes deep breaths and turns to Zarius, “Yes, well, I’ll try my best. I believe Xalmann is much better on the offensive scale of things. I may need to get close to the turtle to do some real damage. Xalmann, just keep firing those spells. Don’t bother with trying to avoid me.”
Edward summons light from his hand that coalesce into a wall of light the float parallel to the ground. He steps onto the glowing light platform and moves it towards the giant beast. When he is at least ten feet above the turtle, he jumps down and transforms into a werewolf midair. His body hair grows longer and his body grows taller. His face elongates into a snout and his finger extend into claws. Edward impacts into the shell of the beast and rushes towards the head of the turtle. He uses his claws on his feet to dig into the shell to stabilize himself. When he finally reaches the head, he howls in excitement and slams both of his claws into the exposed flesh of the beast. The claws dig in deep before Edward roughly pulls his claws out again.

Xalmann wasn't expecting that. He'd had no idea Edward was a werewolf. Had he been a werewolf during their travels across the Lightning Fields? That didn't matter. What mattered now was the huge dragon turtle headed directly for them.

He continued to throw fire bolts toward the dragon turtle, trying to concentrate his fire on the head, where it was most vulnerable. The shell seemed nearly impervious to his attacks, only being slightly singed. Though, he wasn't sure his attacks to its head were doing much either. It seemed to just be getting more agitated as he continued. He might have been able to help more if he could actually get on top of the turtle, but he didn't have the ability to summon a platform of light like Edward had.

The dragon turtle was nearly upon the ship and Xalmann decided he needed to take more action. His weapons securely sheathed at his sides, he stepped up onto the railing and dove over the side, into the water below. He swam toward the dragon turtle, using his tail to help. The dragon turtle turned toward him while he swam, looking to bite into the one that had thrown so many fire attacks at its head, but it stopped and screeched in pain as a chunk of its neck was torn out by the werewolf Edward.

Xalmann took the opportunity to swim to the dragon turtle's side and grab hold of it, climbing onto the top of its shell. He placed his hands on it and siphoned away its strength, making it dizzy and sluggish. He hoped this would be more helpful than all of the fire bolts had been.

---

Vampiric Touch

The dragon turtle thrashes about in the water as Edward and Xalmann take the fight to it. Xalmann's spell takes ahold of the creature and it grows lethargic, its head dropping into the water as its wounds bleed a red cloud into the sea water. 

Zarius doesn't pay this much mind. He's not thrilled at being left behind on the ship but someone had to help the crew get things situated so they could escape. He was too busy hanging from the crossbar of the mast with the replacement sail to really hold anything against his two traveling companions. Working together with the crew, he manages to get the new sail secured before they unfurl it, catching the wind. He jumps down to the deck and races back to the rail as the ship begins to move. 

"Unless you two want to get left behind to become that thing's next meal, you better get back over here quick!" He shouts at them and throws a few lines in the water for them to grab onto if they need it. 

He circles back up to the helm and looks at the surrounding storm. They still needed to get through that in order to be in the clear. It looked like part of the storm was starting to lift around the edges of the eye on one side. That was their best bet, if they could get through there, they might be able to get back in one piece. 

Standing atop of the giant turtle’s head, Edward keeps clawing and biting at this beast’s flesh. The turtle tried to swing Edward off of its head but Edward keeps using his claws to maintain a stable foot hold on this being. Out of his periphery, Edward can see that the Lizardman has swim to the turtle and is currently casting a spell to exhaust this creature as Edward can feel that the turtle’s movements are more sluggish than it had been before.

Sensing this opportunity, Edward moves in front of this being’s eyes and a cascade of golden light bursts from his body, hitting its eyes and blinding it. The turtle, feeling desperate, tries to slam its massive fins on the water, trying to create a big enough waves to knock Edward and Xalmann away from it but due to Xalmann’s spell, can barely move its fin. Edward roars in exultation and jumps up and down in excitement. He drops down on all fours and rushes across the turtles head, digging his claws deeper into the flesh of the turtle, trying to cause as mush damage to this creature. The turtle also roars but in pain and fails its fins around the water, creating some waves in the water.

With a final angry roar, the dragon turtle can tell these two won't be easily shaken off. But, it has one trick it can use that it knows should release it from this torment eventually.

It starts to sink down into the wat, the waves rushing up and over its shell and head as it disappears below the surface. Xalmann knows he can't keep a hold of it for very long like this and he needs to get back to the boat. He can't breathe underwater, after all. He releases his grip on the giant shell and starts to run across it, toward the boat and the head of the dragon turtle. Quickly, water rushes over the shell and slows his pace, but he has enough momentum to leap into the water to the side of the turtle's head and swim for the rope thrown by Zarius.

The dragon turtle looks at the Lizardman in the water, wanting to take a bite as a bit of revenge for the burns and the awful sluggishness it had caused, but decides it wouldn't be worth it. It knows how to get back at these two for what they've done to it, and they wouldn't be able to stop it.

Xalmann managed to grab a hold of the line and looked back at the werewolf while the dragon turtle continued to sink into the depths.

Zarius runs back across the deck to the back where Xalmann had managed to grab onto a rope. He gets a firm grip on the line and starts hauling the lizardfolk back to the ship, hoping the dragon turtle wouldn't come back for another round. 

Once Xalmann is within reach, he helps drag him out of the water and onto the deck of the ship. The fiery salamander seemed unharmed for the most part, just a little soggy. 

"Well done." He pants then scans the water for Edward, or a drowning dog, whichever was appropriate for the moment.

The paladin's transformation was certainly new to him, it would have come in handy in the fights against the displacer beasts. Though it seemed the feral nature of the transformation also messed with his common sense. If the dumb human drowned he would be sure to find someone to call upon his ghost so the tiefling could tell him how stupid and reckless he was. 

The ship starts picking up speed as the crew work to head towards the edge of the storm away from the dragon turtle lurking somewhere beneath the surface. 

"Edward! If you can hear me you better doggy paddle like your life depends on it!" Zarius shouts across the water. 

Edward can feel the turtle sinking deeper into the water. Edward feels like this is a coward’s move, how dare this turtle think it can shake him off. The werewolf ignores Zarius and howls in defiance at this turtle’s cowardice. Edward digs his claws even deeper and slams his claws through the skin of the turtle. It continues to sink even deeper into the water and after a few moment, Edward is submerged into the sea. Edward already took a deep breath through his snout before being submerged and keeps clawing at the turtles flesh.

The turtle shakes its head back and forth as Edward expends more energy to stay on it. The werewolf holds his breath still but after a couple moments, begins to feel his lungs burning from the lack of air. Edward keeps slamming his claws but eventually, loses the strength to hang on to the turtle and is forced to jump upwards towards the surface. Edward breaches through the water a gasps for air. He then roars in unwillingness at the fact that he couldn’t kill this magnificent foe. He paddles like a dog back to the ship and digs his claws into the hull to climb back onto deck.