‘Try… Again? A different plan then?’ “What if we gather the oil together and once it’s in the courtyard we burn it, turn the whole thing into a giant bonfire.”

He lifted a hand to his chin, thinking for a moment, all still with his eyes closed. “Usually when things catch fire… It makes things get worse… If it was alive it might work, but all we’d be doing is toughening its hard skin.”

‘So zombies aren’t weak to fire? Go figure…’ “Ok, how about… Wait, why exactly was the first plan bad again?”

He finally leaned forward, opened his eyes, and stared directly into my soul. “I’m not going to let you put your life at risk defending someone else's territory.”

The commander of the fort leaned forward as well. “Lord Airsidh, is it true that this girl can see crystals with her eyes?”

He nodded. “Yeah, it is. Although it would be best to not repeat that outside of this room.”

“And what is the young miss’s name.”

“Just call her Siya.”

‘Arn’t I the only one that can give people permission to shorten my name?’

The commander cleared his throat. “Right then, Siya, how good are you with a bow?”

My brother and I looked at each other for a moment smirking before I answered. “Good enough.”

“Good enough to shoot the crystals while my min and I take the brunt of the attack?”

‘Uhm… I mean, I’ve never missed so…’ “Yeah I could–”

“No, she’s not.” My brother interjected, crushing my spirits and making me suddenly feel timid again like I was stupid for saying anything in the first place.

“I… I am pretty good though… Right?”

He sighed. “The Kraken is capable of moving its crystals through its body like blood, by the time it feels the arrow from the time the arrow punctures deep enough to break the crystal, the crystal will already be gone.”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

I groaned. “Why don’t we just have Lu nuke the thing.”

“Lu doesn’t get to decide when that happens.”

“Then we set it on fire to kill its nerves.”

“Undead feel with manna, its nerves are already dead… Move away from the fire…”

My voice broke for a second before I took a deep breath, reminding myself not to get worked up. “Fine, we have to trap the tendrils with chains, that takes away the danger while we.”

“Dead.”

‘Yeah… That probably wouldn’t work.’ “Ok, we use the boats to launch harpoons from the other side and tear it in half by pulling it in two directions.”

“Creative, but no. For the harpoons to go in deep enough they have to be thrown by a select number of people with extremely precise aim, and I’m not letting you on a boat sailing next to a Kraken.”

I sighed. ‘So you mean that plan might actually work?’ “You just had to go crushing my pirate spirit before I even got to set sail…”

“Being a pirate, another creative yet bad idea. And when I use the term creative I mean too crazy for me to reasonably calculate the odds.”

I groaned. “Woe is me, for my means are sane, but rather my motive and my object that are mad.” ‘That would have sounded so much cooler if I was standing on a boat… Or at least holding a whaling harpoon.’ Letting out another sigh I gave up on the crazy ideas and brought myself back down to reality. “So, I just have to keep myself safe right? Ok… The anchor chains from the boats… We can use those to trap the tendrils and.”

“Give it more deadly weapons and increase casualties and structure damage. Try again.” He interrupted with a grin, still egging me on.

“Well, why don’t you come up with something!”

He leaned back again. “Right, how about we just get back in the carriage and leave? That way both you and Lu will stay safe…er… We will probably have to fight something or other later on, but it won’t be an undead kraken at least.”

The commander took a deep breath, calmly watching as we debated. He knew he couldn’t ask for our help, we had no obligation to aid him… So watching was all he could do, and he already told us what the plan was if we didn’t… ‘They’ll all be wiped out won’t they?’

Airsidh chuckled. “Coming up with a plan is a real pain you know, that’s why I have you. When you do all the work for me it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. What is it again? I think it’s called–”

“Being lazy…” I groaned.

He snapped his fingers and pointed at me, kicking his feet up on the table. “That’s it, that’s the word. I quite like it you know.”

‘Part of me wonders if he doesn’t already have a plan and saying we’d leave is a bluff…’ I climbed up onto the table and sat down, staring at the map of the castle. It’s a shame we can’t just burn it to death, it would be easy to set up ways to cover it in oil with this layout. They even have a crayne here we could preload, and throwing casks from these walls…’ “Hey Air… If we set it on fire and it toughens up, would that restrict the movement of the crystals? Or would only the outside toughen up?”

“We can test that on one of the severed limbs… For now, let’s assume that it does. The hide would become too thick for you to get through with your bow. Even mine might struggle.”

‘He didn’t say try again though…’ “So if our bows don’t work… Then we just use the ballista right? They should be strong enough.”

He leaned forward, taking his feet off the table, his smile growing wider. “You want to use an anti-air ballast on a fish?”

“I mean… I’ve used tools more inappropriately before.”

He slowly closed his eyes raising both his eyebrows.

“You know what I mean…” I groaned

He shook his head. “Right then, no time to waste, let’s go test your theory.”

The commander stood up first. “Let me know how it goes…” He said boldly before turning to stare out the window at what remained of his castle… Seeing him like that made me start to think that there was really no way I’d ever be able to understand how he felt in that moment… I still didn’t like him though.