"Good job, Captain! You found breakfast." Of course, Ozzy wasn't sure if the sea critter or his captain was first on the menu.
As he saw Woodrat lifted into the air by the tentacle, Ozzy threw his arm forward and concentrated on the chain wrapped around his arm, pouring smoke into it. The Trammelian chain shot out and wrapped several times around whatever had grabbed his captain and he pulled the long, sucker-filled arm back towards him, bring along its captive. Woodrat appreciated that he wasn't immediately getting tossed into the Krakens beak-like maw and was anxious to delay that possibility even further. He drew his sword, and began slashing at the tentacle, the sword drawing out its smoke with each hit. It took only three slashes to sever the rubbery tentacle, and he crashed to the deck and was drawn towards Ozzy. The severed tentacle let go of him and flopped around on the deck of the ship.
Ozzy got a better look at the beast from the doorway of the passage. It had a large, ponderous body like a walrus with huge flippers, if any walrus had ever been twice the size of an elephant. The head was a mass of squid tentacles with an enormous snapping beak in the center. This creature was much bigger than the one they had encountered the day before in the other ship. The large body lifted up by the flippers and the kraken advanced another ten feet before it crashed back to the deck. Mobility outside of the smoke was a problem for it, but not much when your prey is trapped inside a rotting ship. The thing thrust two tentacles into the hallway where the humans were taking cover. Ozzy grabbed them both, and pulled hard, his bare feet gouging the floorboards as he moved backwards, stretching out the rubbery limbs. Woodrat severed both with his sword, the bleeding stumps pulling back out of the passage as they were cut, and the creature bellowed and backed off a few feet, surprised by the pain.
Woodrat hopped out on deck and Ozzy followed, cautioning Woodrat. "That thing still has seven good arms to grab us with, be careful."
The captain laughed, ducked under a waving tentacle and severed it with one blow, the sword burning brightly now. "I count only six, Mr. Ozzy. But then, a captain has to know how to count the arms of a kraken, so he can know just how tough the beasties are. This is a ten-limbed walker of unusual size. Be careful, they like to eat sailors whole and then spit out the cleaned skeletons later. If it had twelve tentacles I'd wonder about our chances, and sixteen would send me running."
As if to prove a point about how dangerous it was, the kraken spewed acidic bile at Ozzy along with disgorging one full skeleton, a skull and many loose bones. It was disgusting, but the caustic stew barely hurt him. Looking down at his hands, Ozzy saw the barest outline of his gauntlets. He had been wearing them when he had been fighting the ghoul. And somehow, he was still wearing them, or they were part of him, here in the smoke. The Gauntlets of Gauderang the Vile gave him +50 mitigation vs acid, and stacked with Monstrous. The acid stung when it got into his eyes, and that was about its only effect.
As if expecting the larger morsel to be easy to grab after the debilitating acid bath, a tentacle reached out to Ozzy, only to be grabbed by the Butcher and severed by the captain. Woodrat yelled out, "Five, we have it half dead." Half dead was still very dangerous. The remaining tentacles slashed sideways at them, and both Ozzy and Woodrat were knocked down on the slippery deck. A tentacle grabbed the captain, and before either of them could do anything he was pushed whole into the kraken’s mouth and swallowed.
Ozzy cursed and ran directly at the beast, nearly tripping over an acid-etched skull. He grabbed both halves of the beak and pulled them open, going much farther than nature had intended for them to be separated. Something tore and broke. He could see down into its gullet, but didn't see Woodrat. Cursing again he dove into the throat of the monster, going after his captain, and cursing himself for being a damned fool.
The confused and wounded beast wondered how it had consumed its prey so suddenly. It was feeling pain from the stumps of its tentacles and its broken beak. It moved clumsily around, looking for some place it could curl up and heal. In great pain and waving the remaining tentacles and stumps around, smashing what was left of the ship, it headed towards the cargo hold. Inside, its meal wasn't co-operating.
Woodrat was acid burned but somehow alive, and could tell his Mate was beside him. He slashed at the beast's innards, starting to cut his way out before the acid ate him alive. He was surprised it wasn't stronger. An eerie, grey light was shining inside the creature, somehow produced here in its stomach. Ozzy had grabbed the beast's gut with both hands and was stealing its smoke ripping open first the stomach, and then hacking away with his hatchet at ribs and muscle. The cuts were powerful and precise as he homed in on his target, but it was hard to work in the small confines of the creature’s stomach. He had his legs spread and head down, constantly pushing to make room. The kraken stomped back and forth, weakening, unable to do anything but roar in pain, clenching its sides and trying to crush its troublesome dinner. After a minute it slumped to the deck, and a flaming sword cut through its soft, blubbery hide. Woodrat was pushed out and up by his Mate. Ozzy followed only a moment later, clutching the krakens heart.
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Ozzy looked at the heart, and poured enough heat into to it to make it glow brightly before throwing it up skyeward.
The acid was burning Woodrat again, but only for a moment as his Mate cleaned him off with a powerful spell. Cleanse washed away the gore and acid from the captain. Ozzy was certain the spell was getting more powerful now. He cleaned himself up and turned to look at the thing they had slain.
"Remember how I said we needed to go fishing before I show you how to make sausage? We can skip that part now. Think we can find a couple of barrels in this tub? And do it without you finding something that wants to eat you?"
Woodrat had sheathed his sword, and the whole fight seemed to take on a much different feel. The damned weapon was making him too cocky. He'd been lucky, so very lucky, to emerge from that with most of his skin intact. Then he smiled. If luck was smiling on him, then he'd best make the best of it while he could. The fates seemed to agree with him. "On a whaling ship? Yes, I can turn one up. They pack hundreds of barrels with them for harvesting the blubber and oil. I'll take a look in the hold while you start making us some breakfast.
You have slain a Squid-Faced Behemoth (Named Boss)
You earn 500 experience which may be used to increase any skill used in the battle.
You have gained 5 Enhancement Points.
Cleanse has been upgraded from a cantrip to a spell.
Ozzy untied the chain holding the longboat aloft and lowered it to the deck. Then he pulled two more tables from elsewhere in the ship out to the deck and got his sausage grinder set up. Then the task of butchering the behemoth began. Chunks of tentacles went in one pile, slabs from the thick body into another, the long guts over by the grinder, and everything else was tossed to the biggest pile.
He'd cooked calamari many times, just not something this big. There were a couple of tons of squid meat in piles on the deck. Woodrat had found 3 empty and mostly useable casks in the hold, and one that was partially full of rendered whale blubber. "We're in luck! That oil is a treat to cook with. Whale blubber is full of smoke and can be fried up for a meal on its own. The oil makes darn near anything taste better."
The wood wright inspected the oil-filled cask and made sure it wasn't leaking, then repaired the other three. Ozzy hauled them up on deck, then took one over the side with him and began harvesting the sargasso weed. The thick weed was dead for several feet down and he made sure he didn't go far enough to be in danger of the moving bits further down. Parts of it were thick with the little red berries. Back on deck, he started running the salad through the grinder, turning it into a finer mix and grinding up the berries. The second run through he tossed in butchered tentacle and some of the organs and guts, along with a good mix of the salad. He concentrated on turning it into sausage. Whatever Butcher's magic was at work did the trick. A string of fat links 8" long came out of the grinder and fell into the barrel.
Woodrat watched from the poop deck and stayed out of the Butcher's way. He had a bad feeling about getting too near him when he was turning everything around him into sausage. His mate was getting better and better with those flensing hatchets. It didn't seem to matter what he was cutting up.
Two hours later Ozzy had two barrels of sausage, and another of the better parts of the squid. Both were soaking in a gallon of whale oil. He hammered down the wooden barrel lids and then forced smoke into them until it started leaking out the cracks between the staves. Then he applied a little heat and left them to simmer.
Woodrat caught a whiff of the smell and smiled, feeling sentimental. The sausage smelled just like squid fried in whale oil, just like his momma used to make for him when she was home from sailing. Mom coming home was always a treat. Dad couldn't cook anything but clams, and they got very tired of the little shelled critters they had to rundown in the shallows at low tide. He looked forward to trying out the sausage.
The daydreaming captain was scanning the horizon by habit and looking through the haze over the Sargasso when he thought he saw something in the distance. A slight reflection of something bright. He made a mark on the rail to indicate the direction in case he didn't see it again, and laid his spyglass on the deck, pointing in that direction. Ozzy was just finishing up with his sausage when he saw Woodrat nimbly climb up the tallest mast of the whaler. The captain took a heading from the spyglass and scanned the wrecks in that direction. Sure enough, with many wrecks between them was a smaller ship from which something was glinting. And to Captain Woodrats mind, that meant treasure. A ship that could afford a bit of metal or glass in its build would have other things of value on it.
"Load up your boat Mr. Ozzy. I see something and we're going to travel that way and see what we can see, and find what we can find."