Perhaps as a consequence of the forced terraforming done by The Great Tree, the southern part of Arcfira was radically different from its Earth counterpart. Where once lay rolling plains and grasslands dotted with plateaus of various sizes, now stood a place more akin to the Floridian Everglades, the Louisianan Bayous, or the Amazon Rainforest. To make things even weirder, the land had sunken nearly forty feet below sea level, only being kept as it was due to the efforts of the Great Tree.

Masses of tangled roots from millions of trees acted as a series of dikes, preventing the ocean from flooding in and drowning everything for many miles inland. However, these roots had long since died due to the exposure to the heavily salted waters of the ocean, and each year that passed saw this dead wood grow weaker and weaker. In fact, as of right now, it was just barely able to fulfill its duty. The Great Tree should have been paying attention to this issue that was gradually increasing in danger with each year, but it seemed to believe that it had better things to do or perhaps simply did not care.

It was at the place where these roots had been worn down the most that Atlanti’lyeh struck. The submarine nation run by a colossal eldritch horror waifu was finally getting its chance to shine, and who better to kick down the backdoor of the Arcfiran Confederated Tribes than Zalga Nagadjhar herself? All of the intel that she had been fed stated clearly that the dumb knife-eared land-walkers were focused on the northernmost reaches of their continent, leaving nothing but civilians and a few measly tribal militias to defend the south and central territories.

While she could not risk sending her people up through the rampaging rivers that led into the central portion of the continent’s jungles, this front was bound to be far less dangerous. As she picked up speed, swimming faster and faster towards the deadwood dike, she had a rather cunning and theatrical idea. Rather than ramming through and potentially getting somewhat stuck on the other side until enough water poured through, she would instead swim parallel to the dike and use her magic and physical might to destroy more of it and allow even more water to flood the basin.

So, rather than heading in a perfectly straight line, she turned out towards the left side and then turned back towards the dike. After she was close enough, she turned even more to the right and now swam just meters away from the deadwood that made up the dike. The sheer pressure of her form, combined with the speed and water pressure, was enough to rupture the dike, causing a cascading chain reaction of systemic failure that her presence only accelerated at an alarming rate. As the water poured into the basin, so too did the Naga that had come to add their own power to the war effort.

As more of the dike collapsed, more water and, simultaneously, more Naga, poured in. Eventually, the basin was almost entirely underwater, and thus was the perfect hunting ground for the nautical ladies. As was expected, a number of the native sentient beings (more specifically the Elves) managed to get to higher ground, though even that was a dangerous place to be. After all, though plateaus existed, the vast majority of people lived in houses built into and around the large trees that had been cultivated over one and half thousand years.

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This meant that their abodes were, for the most part, merely a few feet to a handful of meters above the new water line, and even more than that were now completely underwater or halfway underwater. More and more Elves attempted to climb higher, but as you might expect, those who lived higher up in the canopy were not the kind of people to let others just take refuge in their homes. Not for free, anyways.

The Tribes had a tradition where everyone was, at least on paper, equally valuable and equally respected. As anyone who has had to deal with another person can tell you, though, very few people, if any at all, will willingly abide by such mandates. And if you added in the typical arrogance and self-importance of the various Elven tribes, you got what you would expect; a caste system that existed in reality but also technically didn’t exist at all. If a modern nation where all are (at least on paper) considered both equal and subject to the same laws can’t hope to deal with the rich and influential doing whatever they want, how could anyone expect a nation of Tribal Elves to be any better?

That said, like our own world, there were some who were more gracious than others, but the vast majority of the ‘lesser’ Elves were forced to either tread water or try and survive in half-submerged homes as groups of predatory/ homicidal aquatic femme fatales stalked through the mostly submerged jungle. Some of the Elves were lucky in that they drowned or died when the water rushed in and crushed them with its pure force, but a not-insignificant number were either clinging to life or were trying to swim to safety.

However, while in Darksol you were taught to swim properly, these Elves had never been taught how to do more than doggy-paddle. Yes, some of them knew how to tread water, but most were thrashing around and trying desperately to find something to use as a flotation device. These panicked movements drew the attention of the Naga, who had a massive amount of fun toying with those who could not get to safety. And, while all this was going down, something that neither the Naga nor the Elves expected sounded off through both air and water.

It seemed as if a certain oversized and quite perverted Dungeon Master was having a bit of fun of his own. As just before Zalga began her final approach Zero noir had begun to play a certain song from an ‘old’ Earth movie. From the second in a series of Action-Adventure-themed Pirate movies, the tense and emotional tune that accompanied a massive sea monster’s attack was all the warning that the Elves got that something was going to happen.

And, once the Kraken’s Song had finished, Zero Noir seemed unable to help himself as he played a looped version of the most well-known theme from a certain aquatic horror movie that made sharks into public enemy number one, despite more people worldwide dying to cows than sharks per year. But in his defense, when aquatic predators are stalking and killing with as much reckless abandon and as much, if not more brutality than Bruce the Great White, what other, more thematic music could you play?