Chapter 44: Let’s Get Kraken
Twice more that awful jailor tried to order his agents to do his bidding, but the keening noise from the box seemed to wash his words away before they reached their targets. Right now, he was yelling and swearing as his agents stood uncertainly around even as the ground quaked beneath their feet.
Dantes ignored them in favor of checking on Captain Crow. He was barely conscious, and he’d left a lot of blood on the floor, his exertions having broken open a nasty gash on his back.
“I’m sorry, Dantes. I’ve killed us all. It was… the only way. For my boy. Maybe if you. Run now.” Crow hacked wildly, staying anything else he would have said.
The ground shook in time with another scream from outside. He didn’t even want to think about what was making that noise.
“Come on Captain, let’s get going.” He held out an arm to the guilt wracked man who couldn’t look him in the eye.
“Look at me, Dantes. My body is shattered. And even if I could, it would be no use. There’s. No chance of survival. We have maybe. Ten minutes to get 5 miles off the coast. Impossible. Just. Leave me here.”
Ignoring his captain, he grasped the man’s wrist and picked him up, slinging him around his neck.
He looked around and found Mitty waiting for him at the staircase, along with Hawk. The sight of her waiting for him there warmed his heart. She could have left him. Should have. But they were together now.
He turned to leave, but paused, turning to the agents. They weren’t so different from how he’d been.
“I used to be like you, bound to a master. A bad one. You can break those chains, now, if you have the courage” he said.
“I know it feels like without him, you are purposeless. It might seem like your world is small, but it’s so much bigger than you can know.” Hawk joined in.
“We’ll all die, Nine, you mongrel. What does it matter!” spat the Sultan.
“I am not a number. I am a man! My name is Hawk, and if I die, I will die free.”
He left, helping Mitty up the stairs and Dantes followed after, not waiting to see if any of them joined. Their fate was up to them now, even if it was only ten minutes. But ten minutes of freedom was better than a life of servitude.
The vegetation that had cluttered the stairs seemed to shrink back from the keening whine, making their journey up mostly without difficulty, though his calves were starting to hurt. His fight earlier had taxed him to his last, and his head still throbbed from focusing.
The ground bucked beneath them like a bull, causing him to stumble, skinning his knee as they reached the top. Crow groaned in pain, but didn’t say anything else as they emerged into the old storage room. He’d given up on getting Dantes to give up on him.
“There’s no way out except up through the lower levels, so we’ll have to keep climbing” said Mitty, who’d recovered enough on the ascent to walk unaided by Hawk.
It had taken them near half an hour on the descent. He couldn’t imagine scrambling up some of the slanted staircases, especially ground shaking as it was.
“If this temple is the same, the cell over there should have a window.”
Mitty shook her head. “I checked before. It’s too small to get through, and it’s made of the same stone as the walls. Even if it borders the outside, the stone here is magical, and near impossible to scratch.”
“No.” Crow groaned in his ear. “In the sequence before it explodes, the Desert Rose emits Anti-Magic Pulses. It shouldn’t be stronger than regular stone.”
“Worth a shot. Look after Crow.”
He dropped the man in the hall and they scrambled over to the cell. The same cell they’d put in him briefly in the other temple. The room was slanted down slightly so he made a running start and threw himself against it with all his [Strength].
Like this, he and Hawk took turns battering themselves against the wall. Looking up, he noticed small cracks forming in the ceiling. Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said about the wall. It stood just as firm as it did before, despite the beating they were putting out. Hawk was less built for this sort of thing. They were going to die, and the wall did not care.
From behind he heard Mitty yelp as the ground bucked particularly hard, but he paid it no mind. This wall was his opponent for now. He mustered the remaining scraps of power in his muscles, scavenging his reserves for one final strike. He closed his eyes… and felt someone push him aside gently, but with the immovable strength of a mountain.
Pushing through into the cell was the female agent Three, who unfastened her cloak, letting it fall to the floor. She took a moment to limber up, stretching her arms and legs in a way that demonstrated an extreme range of motion on top of some very impressive muscles.
“Make way, boys” Mitty shouted. Belatedly, he and Hawk split as Three charged through, shoulder first.
It wasn’t the fastest he’d ever seen someone move, but the wall apparently disagreed, for in a thunderclap that momentarily drowned out the keening in his ear, the agent met the wall. Then a roar sounded from right outside, shaking the foundations of the temple. It was much louder now that they were above ground level, and it rattled his teeth even though it passed through at least one layer of stone.
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Reluctantly, as though it were conceding an argument it had stubbornly fought, the wall cracked in a spiderweb fractal, then fell away, shards tumbling down the sheer slope of the temple wall outside. Fortunately, it was a short drop.
It took another charge to clear a hole large enough for them to climb through, but once it was opened, they all filed out, dropping the few feet down to the jungle floor. He winced as he caught the Captain on his broken leg, but he made only a pained grunt. The man still avoided his gaze.
Three waited for them all to make it out before touching her chest and bowing slightly before turning wordlessly into the jungle in a sprint.
The keening from inside the temple followed them out here, and even seemed to grow louder each passing second as they stumbled to follow the ex-agent, but the woman seemed to gain momentum as she ran, and soon she was out of sight entirely, disappearing into the jungle.
They made their way almost to the tree line when they encountered an obsidian cliff rising straight up. It looked extremely unnatural and shiny, as though slicked in oil.
Their path cut off, the slowed to a rest. He dared not put Crow down, as he wasn’t sure he had it in him to pick him back up, but he leaned against a tree while Mitts inspected the strange cliffside.
She put pushed against it, then pulled away, a slimy tar covering her hand. She grimaced, pulling up her hood. It made her blend in rather well with it, he thought, watching as she pulled out an extremely simple dagger and swing at it.
A wave of force hit him, and he staggered as a ringing noise engulfed his world. His eyesight trembled from the noise in his ears, blurring. Slowly the force faded into a screeching before trailing off completely, leaving only the ringing behind. He felt warmth trickle down his ears, but hefted Crow. They needed to keep moving, cliff be damned.
Then the cliff moved.
It flexed and raised into the air, leaving a deep furrow in the ground where it had been, and he could see it wasn’t a cliff after all. The tentacle slammed down only a few feet behind them, but it came down with such force, the earth roiled like the ocean.
Suddenly Mitty was there, pulling him to his feet. His vision swam, but he stumbled to his feet.
He’d fallen, he realised. Where was Crow? He looked but couldn’t see him, his head spinning.
Mitty yelled something he couldn’t make out, but she led him on, surefooted despite the rumbling ground.
They angled away from the tentacles when they could, but it seemed there was no escape as they continued to encounter the things.
First one blocking their way, then another. One crept along the ground inland like a massive snake. Another one took the canopy off from above them in long sweeping scythes, showering them in branches and leaves, and narrowly avoiding hitting them with falling trees.
Then they were surrounded.
A tentacle cut them off from advancing forwards, curving to block their path forwards. This one was thicker and taller than any others before. Behind, the keening was nearing an apex. There was no route forward, and behind was certain death.
The thick appendage pulsed, and he could feel a deep coolness spreading from it. The air felt briny and heavy like they were suddenly pulled into the abyssal depths. There was a burning smell that lingered though, despite the cold. A force pushed on his chest, and the air misted from each breath he took.
The tentacle ahead circled around them, cutting them off from any possible retreat even if he had the strength to turn back. He didn’t. He barely had the strength to stand.
Slowly, the tentacle constricted around them, corralling them onto a large boulder in the center, though it looked like a pebble before this monstrosity. His vision still swam, but the warmth from Mitty’s hand flowed into his, and he grasped it like a lifeline. They were together. If this was the end, then life had still been worth living. He regretted none of it.
As the slimy walls closed in on each side, a shadow blotted out the sun. A great mass moved over them as walls of slimy flesh passed over, the sunlight glinting off them like a cold reflection. Mist rose in sheets off its skin wherever the sunlight struck it. Then an eye passed over them and stopped. The eye was large as a ship and emitted a blinding radiance in this slimy cavern of its own creation.
“Thiiieeeefffff.”
Mitty looked up, the spotlight eye above illuminating her face completely. She held herself tightly, a determined look on her face. There was no half grin, which is how he could tell she was terrified. She pulled out something from her pockets and presented it.
“There’s no life in this! It would never hatch!”
She stole an egg he realised. Of all the stupid things…
“Liieeeesss. Cuuurrrssseeee yoouuu.”
The world was scorched by light as the giant eye burned away the shadows, painting the world white, even through his closed eyes.
“It’s no lie, look!” she yelled, holding up the egg to the beast’s eye.
The light did not dim, but focused into a thin beam on Mitty, shining right through the oblong egg illuminating it until he could see right through it. There was nothing; it was empty.
There was a long silence as the giant pupil dilated. It pulsed several times, and he could almost feel the creature weighing the truth of her words.
“Prrootteeecct.”
As it almost sighed that word, a crack opened up from above, and a smaller tentacle snaked in and placed an egg into her hands. Not an enormous one, like he’d expected, but one barely the size of a fingernail, though it was hard to see as he tried and failed to blink away the green spots on his vision.
He could see Mitty open her mouth then close it, likely holding back a complaint.
“We will” she settled on after a moment.
With that, the tentacle withdrew, the walls unraveled slowly, natural light seeping back through the cracks, though it was anemic compared to the blinding spotlight that had just inspected them.
By now, most of the trees between them and the jungle had been felled by the rampaging kraken, the only standing landmark the temple in the distance.
The beast dragged itself over on powerful limbs, ripping up mounds of earth and bedrock as it moved. It latched onto the temple in a crushing grip, shearing away the top half with the sound of a hundred thunderclaps.
It brought another tentacle down on the remaining base of the structure, breaking it in half like a cracker.
Several more tentacles slithered into the shattered structure, seeking, while the others flayed away what little stone remained above ground in a violent display.
Soon, the searching tentacles ripped something out of the ground. He squinted, straining his [Sight] to its limit, though it still swam like a fish in a flowing river. The vault, he realised. It had ripped out the entire room from below ground.
The kraken shook the vault before clubbing at it with its tentacles, gold catching the sunlight as it scattered every which way under the beast’s assault.
He realised with a start that the keening wail that had been worming its way into his head for the past fifteen minutes had ceased. An eerie silence swept over the island despite the roars of the kraken hammering away at the vault. It was dented beyond recognition now, but it held fast against the battering.
The flailing stopped. All the tentacles were still now, except one. In a single move, the kraken shoved the vault into its gaping mouth.
There was a moment of complete silence now, only broken by the hiss of mist rising off the kraken like steam.
Then the kraken erupted. Chunks of it as large as castles went in every direction, blood blacker than night painting the sky and ravaged ground alike where it burst into clouds of mist. The ground buckled and broke as the boulder they were on jumped several feet, jarring him as he barely caught himself from falling off. A shockwave of air raced outwards as he felt the sound hit him like a physical force.
The world dimmed, and he found himself on his back, Mitty stooped over him, yelling something he couldn’t hear. Locks of white cascaded down onto him, tickling his numb face.
White?
Then everything went black.