A slimy, black tentacle slammed onto the deck of the ship just as I was brushing my short hair out of my eyes from the salt water that lashed my skin.
CREAK.
The ship jolted and dropped down in the sky before regaining its composure and halting our untimely descent. The wooden slats on the ship’s deck cracked under the pressure of the tentacle and before I had chance to summon my bow, Bell was raising her arms.
“No!” I shouted, diving from my position atop the stairs and slamming her to the ground, “if you fire that here you’ll set the damned ship on fire you idiot.”
She looked up at me with glistening eyes before cancelling her spell. Looking sheepish, she muttered an apology and we untangled ourselves from one another.
My head snapped in the direction of a second crack as another tentacle slapped onto the ship, wrapping around the bow where I was stood only moments ago.
For a second I was worried for Sally, who was also up there, but the silver ranker had wasted no time gawking at the slimy appendages that assaulted our vessel.
She had leaped into the air, drawing her oversized sword from her back, and crashing down onto the first tentacle. She cleaved it in half as inky blood sprayed across the deck, creating a slip hazard worthy of a “slippery when wet” sign.
Where’s Bon Jovi when you need them, I thought.
Eager to enter the fray myself, I went to draw my bow, but thought better of it and chose my daggers instead. For the same reasons in which I’d stopped Bell’s fireball spell, my bow would likely cause more damage to the ship than it could take.
No Soul Shot for me, I grumbled internally, let’s see what my Newly Qualified Apex Skirmisher skill can do.
I smiled to myself and dashed towards the second tentacle, stabbing my right-hand dagger into its soft flesh and dragging it through the skin as I bolted up the stairs.
The skin smouldered and bubbled as the acid began to take effect, it would have smelled quite nice if it wasn’t for the overpowering sent of rotted fish that stung my nostrils, threatening to burn the nose hair within.
I paid it no mind and dived onto the thickest part of the tentacle, straddling it like a jockey as I stabbed at it over and over, alternating between each dagger. The putrid smell of burning, melting flesh only aided my vigour as I mercilessly attacked the strange creature.
“GWAAAAH!”
An unrecognisable roar of pain came from below the ship and the tentacle retracted, but not before squirming under my acidic onslaught.
I held on tight as it thrashed like a bucking bronco, continually stabbing at its slimy skin.
That was a mistake.
As the tentacle fought to free itself from me and the ship, I realised that it was a pure slab of muscle. Even with my strength stat as high as it currently was, I was no match for it.
The tentacle wriggled and pulled away from the ship, smashing the railing and dragging me overboard. I jumped up, ready to leap back to the ship as the tentacle crested the vessel, but I was too slow.
Just as I leaped, I was slapped by the underside of the monstrosity which wrapped around my torso like a boa constrictor. I felt a gross sucking sensation as I noticed my stamina bar begin to drain at an alarming rate.
The underside of the tentacle was filled to the brim with suckers and I was helpless to remove them. I stabbed at the outside of the appendage with my free arm and another monstrous cry threatened to burst my ear drums.
Still, the tentacle’s grip never faltered and I found myself held aloft, in mid-air, too far from the ship to return even if I did break free.
“Kaleb!” I heard Panda shout from somewhere behind me, “It’s a Kraken, you have to go for the main body, the tentacles will just grow back.”
“Thanks for the info mate,” I replied absently as I continued stabbing at my captor, “but I’m a little tied up at the moment.”
A blaze of searing heat brushed past my free arm and I felt the tentacle shrivel around me. Using that distraction, I pulled myself out of the monster’s grip and found myself free falling towards the main body.
Focusing, a notification popped up in my HUD, slowing down time momentarily and allowing me a precious few second to come up with a plan.
You have discovered a new monster:
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Kraken
There are many legends about the Kraken throughout the world of Celestia, but none are so well known as the story of Kra-Karen who, legend says, attacked over five thousand fishing vessels demanding to speak to their managers.
Sadly, she was eventually murdered by a team of adventurers in Athenile 275. By the time they were finished, all that was left of her remains was a bottle-dyed, blonde inverted bob.
R.I.P
“This is not the time to be Kraken jokes!” I yelled, as time resumed and my stomach somersaulted as I fell towards the creature’s ugly face.
Despite the system’s nonsense, the notification had provided me with a few precious seconds with which to formulate a plan.
Kaleb: Everyone, fire off everything you’ve got at the main body.
Bell: Will do!
Sally: Don’t order me around, Gonads.
Panda: I don’t have any attack magic…
Kaleb: I wasn’t talking to you.
Dismissing the chat function, I summoned my bow and immediately loaded one of my new arrows and pulled the draw string back.
After weeks of practicing with Sally, I knew exactly how much energy I could force into a single Soul Shot before the arrow would shatter. Thankfully, these new arrows could hold a lot more power than the previous ones.
I focused on pouring my soul power into the arrow. It was a similar technique to my meditation, but much more lucid, and fast.
I imagined the power in my core circulating throughout my body and draining from the tips of my fingers into the arrow. It was a tiring process as I was quite literally forcing my stamina coil to deplete.
Previously, I’d only managed a sickly, green glow from this process. My old arrows couldn’t handle much power. The new arrows, however, hummed with a living hue the colour of an evergreen forest.
The green glow was brighter than I’d ever seen it, even leaking into the bow itself. It would have been pretty if it wasn’t for the burning acid power that caused Soul Shot to take on that particular colour.
I faced down the giant creature, which stared back at me through beady, yellow eyes. Its skin was slimy, black and covered in barnacles and other ocean dwelling things.
Most notably though, was the sheer size of the beast. It was an absolute kaiju of a thing, stretching to the height of a small mountain with tentacles that could reach the clouds.
As my arrow reached the familiar capacity for soul infusion, I fired.
It rocketed away from me, shooting downwards towards my foe. There was a crack and then smoke as it tore through the kraken’s face, leaving a medium sized hole in the front and blasting chunks of flesh out of the rear.
“GWAAAH!”
The kraken screamed again, its atonal voice blasting outwards in an omnidirectional shockwave that threatened to burst my eardrums.
I’d been to plenty of metal concerts in my life, and I’d never worn ear protection, but the sheer power behind the kraken’s shout was like nothing I’d experienced before. It was debilitating.
The back blast from my arrow had the intended effect.
I was fired high into the air, away from the kraken and the deadly freefall that had threatened my life.
I rose up past the ship, just in time to see Bell launching a humungous fireball at the creature.
I guess her training paid off too.
She strained to keep her hands held out over the side of the vessel, as if she was actually holding the fire which spun and compacted in front of her.
It was huge and I felt my arm hair singe as I sailed past it, high into the air.
When she couldn’t take the strain anymore, our fireball mage released her gigantic flame which fell slowly towards the kraken.
“Well that’s a little anticlimactic,” I heard Panda say, a statement which he followed up with a yelp as I crash landed onto the deck behind him, cracking the boards as a plume of dust and wood filings covered me.
I consumed a health potion and a stamina potion from my inventory screen and groggily got to my feet. Despite the magic of alchemy, I was still pretty dazed from… everything.
“Where’s Sally?” I asked as I staggered to the railing.
“Following your orders… I guess,” Bell replied.
Furrowing my brow, I looked over the side of the railing just in time to see the fireball slam into the screaming monster. Its flesh began to melt away, green tinged skin receding as the acid from my arrow melted skin from the inside, Bell’s fireball melted it from the outside and the ocean was filling with a thick, black ink worthy of an environmental disaster.
“I didn’t know BP operated in Celestia,” I chuckled.
“How old are you?” Bell replied, eyes glued to the scene below, “that happened when I was a kid.”
I didn’t reply.
Instead, I watched, mouth agape, as I realised where Sally was. Following in the wake of the fireball was a huge sword attached to a, comparatively, tiny catonid.
Sally dove towards the kraken which was now burning and had a large hole through its face. Her oversized sword was lifted above her head, glowing with a red hue that bordered the blade’s edge.
As she reached the kraken she slammed down, like she was wielding a war hammer, and cleaved the beast in two.
Tentacles flailed wildly in the air as the monster fought to the very last breath, but Sally was no slouch and she pressed even harder into the centre mass of the beast.
In less than a second, the body… head? It doesn’t matter… of the monster was fully separated as jet black ink gushed out of its carcass, turning the local ocean into a gothic swimming pool.
Bell and Panda cheered, raising fist and paw alike as I grinned to myself and breathed out a sigh of relief.
I was rather pleased with how my new powers had performed. That being said, Sally’s level of power was my current goal. I wanted to be able to do that. Her level of formidability was a sight to behold and I wanted it.
CRASH.
I flew to the side, crashing into the ship’s mast as a flailing tentacle smashed into the deck of the ship once more.
“I thought it was dead?” Bell yelled in a panic as the boat groaned under the pressure.
There was a loud crack as the deck’s wooden boards, which had taken quite the beating already, finally gave way and snapped. The mast I was laid again creaked and started falling to the side, just as the ship ripped in two and the stray tentacle fell through the wood and back down to its owner with a hearty splash.
The magic wind bubble that surrounded the ship and prevented us from being blown off the side popped. The ship stopped flying forwards and began to lose altitude, a fact I only realised so quickly because of the sudden feeling of somersaulting in my stomach. It felt like I was on The Tower of Terror ride.. but ramped up a fair few notches.
I felt weightless for a moment as wind rushed around me, blowing my cheeks back and threatening to give me an unwanted botox.
We were falling, and the ship was about to crash.