That day, as 80 of our comrades left, the captain, remaining officers, and I began to devise a plan to take down the Leviathen. We didn’t see them off. We didn’t have the luxury of saying farewell to those who left the crew. Some of their reasons for leaving were understandable, though. Many of those who left had families that, if they died, would no longer have anyone to support them. Others, however, left mainly because they had been afraid of dying. We made an oath on the day we joined the Maelstrom, that should we ever arrive at a situation in which the crew or Maelstrom was in danger, we would fight to the bitter end to defend them both. To those men who would abandon their ship and crew for their own survival after making such an oath, we held no sympathy.

The first matter that had to be settled was that we had to gather more support. Be it weapons, suppllies, or people, we needed more of it, and fast. Without them, we would have no chance of killing the beast, let alone holding it off. Thus, we decided that once we got to port, we would request for the assitance of Lithania’s local militia to help defend the city, and thus gain the extra support we needed. When we arrived the city was already in a panic. The mayor had fled the city the minute he learned of the impending attack, leaving the entire command structure in utter chaos. Despite this, the captain managed to use his fame to his advantage. He took up a position in the middle of all the chaos and began directing orders toward the panicking crowd. Seeing the legendary figure, the people began to calm down and quickly evacuated the city. No longer having to deal with the crowd of terrified civilians, the captain rallied the militia as well as several volunteers to keep the monster at bay till the civilians were able to evacuate.

Second, we needed information, anything that could help us against the Leviathen. It’s a beast that has only been killed three times, each of which required more sacrifices than we had up for collateral. Thus, we searched through the town’s library, sifting throught the unending columns of books, gathering as many of them as there were that related to the Leviathen. When we were done searching, we had managed to find around 50 books that had some relation to the monster. Several of the books only held bits and pieces regarding the legends surrounding the Leviathen, ultimately proving useless. Others held written accounts of survivors’ experience with the creatures, providing us with a great deal of information to work off of.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

From the information we found, we discovered that the beast was susceptible to bright light, part of the reason as to why it so rarely surfaces from the depths of the ocean. It’s scales are as tough as iron. However, if it’s exposed to certain level of heat, these scales will begin to soften, opening up a chance to land some hits on it.

Thus we began making our defensive prepartions. Luckily for us, the city of Lithania is surrounded by a massive wall in addition to guard towers  that appeared at every corner of the island. They had been built in case of an attack by raiders or a neighboring island, however they should still do well as a defensive structure against the Leviathen. All the oil in the town was moved to the port, then divided into several crates. Some were moved up to the towers that surrounded the port, while others were left at the docks. They would be used for both defense and attack when needed.

The Maelstrom as well as three of the militia’s own ships  were docked not far from the port, with several crew members on board preparing the canons for use should the Leviathen appear. Cannons were being moved on to the walls that surrounded the city as another angle of attack. My ten man squad was assigned to the walls as a canon crew. The anxiety had finally started kicking in for me, but I pushed that feeling to the back of my mind. If I lost my nerve now, not only would I be risking my own life, but those of my allies.

As the last member of the defense team got into his position, silence fell as we waited for the upcoming assault.