Mariah raced ahead, her long strides not touching the ground, leaving the others behind. Woodrat and Derek ran as fast as they could, with Ozzy bringing up the rear. The ashy top layer of the sargasso put up clouds of dust as they ran along, and they could see a similar cloud being kicked up in the distance.

As they ran further and further, Derek began to slow down, and then Woodrat as well. They'd been running over a mile at this point, and Ozzy was slowly beginning to gain on them. As he overtook them at his steady pace, he simply grabbed each one around the waist and threw them over his shoulder.

Woodrat objected to the treatment. "This isn't proper, you overgrown guppy. What if someone sees you treating me like a sack of potatoes?"

Ozzy just kept running. "Don't worry, Captain; I’d never embarrass you in front of a giant crab. Catch your breath so you can fight, and I'll set you back down."

Quickly, the three of them came upon a fight in progress. The huge crustacean was chasing Mariah, who taunted it and seemed to have no trouble dodging its large pincers. A giant of a man with black skin and red hair was dragging a ship’s boat ashore with several sailors in it. None of them were moving.

The giant unhooked a heavy chain from the bow of the boat, swinging it back and forth as a weapon. He’d used that chain to tow it across the smoke for leagues. He advanced slowly upon the crab, his steps sinking into the crispy vegetation several inches, swinging the chain back and forth. His movements were ponderous and slow. Ozzy recognized the signs of exhaustion. When the firewalker got close to the crab, he swung the chain at it like a flail, slamming it down onto the crab's back and cracking off bits of shell. The crab ignored him, intent on Mariah. It was only after it had been hit three times in the same spot did it react, turning on its eight legs and swinging one of its massive claws at him.

The claw caught the giant in the chest and knocked him down. The large man had made no attempt to dodge or was too tired. The crab advanced with the intent to grab him with its massive claws but came to a halt as a chain ensnared its right claw. Ozzy had thrown out the Trammelian Chain, watching it lengthen as he fed it smoke. The chain wrapped around the crab's claw, jerking the monster to a halt and saving the giant from it. Step by step, Ozzy dragged the huge crab away from the fallen man.

Prevented from attacking the fallen prey, the crab turned and scuttled toward Ozzy, who moved away from it in a circle so that it presented its back to Woodrat and Derek. Woodrat attacked a rear leg, his sword striking the joint where it attached to the body, shearing through muscle and sinew easily. "Grab ahold, Mr. Derek, and give it a tug!" After three strikes, Derek possessed a crab leg as tall as he was.

Ozzy took a blow from one of the claws, unable to entirely keep his distance. He was thankful for his armored hull. The blow did over 500 points of damage to him, but between mitigation, monstrous, and armored hull, he only took 340. The giant stood up and strode toward the monster after he regained his feet, seeing what was happening. He managed to loop his chain around the other claw and pulled in the opposite direction of Ozzy. The crustacean halted, straining to move one way and the other as the two large men pulled with all of their might. Woodrat attacked the legs on one side, his sword aflame and cutting through the hard chitin with ease. Mariah and Derek darted in and pulled severed legs away from the fight, stacking them in a pile.

With three legs gone, the crab's last appendage couldn't hold it up, and it fell on its left side. It was still quite dangerous, and Ozzy kept a tight hold on the chain as Woodrat severed the rest of the legs and began working on the left claw. The firewalker laughed when it came loose from the body, backing away from the crab, clearly exhausted. He tossed the claw into the pile of legs and sat down, holding his head.

Woodrat had never seen a crab this big. It wasn't a named creature or a boss but was Level 16. He'd seen smaller ones cooked before that were barely the size of a man. "Drag it over to near the smoke, Mr. Ozzy, and I'll show you how we cook these up. It will take some smoke and heat, but there's nothing like the taste of a crab baked in its shell." He slit the softer bottom of the shell open and directed Derek and Ozzy on how to clean out the entrails.

The firewalker begged to differ. "I'll eat your crab. Hell, I'd eat anything right now. But if you want tasty crab, you should see how my aunt Enid cooks them! She starts with two barrels of cream and simmers them for a week with onions and peppers. That one would just fit into her big pot."

Ozzy cleansed himself and Derek of crab innards and walked to the giant. "Hungry? I brought along a dozen sausages you can have." The giant nodded his thanks and upended the sack, putting all the sausage into his mouth and chewing noisily.

"I owe you a meal sometime. I hadn’t eaten in over a week, and I was sure my stomach was already eating my liver. I remember my uncle telling us about eating chunks of fried ice in Northeim when he was starving."

"There's more back at our ship. We'll head there next. I'd best see to your crew mates." As Ozzy suspected, they were unconscious from too much heat. Pulling heat from another creature was tricky and dangerous, and Ozzy wasn't sure that he liked the feeling of it. Like Smokestealing, he was taking the life force of another creature. Unlike Smokestealing, it felt good as their heat merged with his own. That bothered him.

He made room in his own furnace by shifting fuel and heat to smoke, replenishing what he’d lost in the fight, then reached for the first man. Even full up, he had only a fraction of the heat that Ozzy did. Trying to pull as little as he could, Ozzy removed over 200 heat, dropping the man out of the danger zone. He did the same to the next two and then checked the pulse and breathing on all three. They were breathing normally and starting to stir.

"Here we go, have a swig of this and swallow it down." Ozzy had ground up a handful of the berries from the sargasso weed and added the dust to a bottle of cheap rum with the idea that no sailor he'd ever heard of refused a drink. As he'd expected, his first patient eagerly took two long swallows of the rum. His eyes opened, and he looked around, confused, before putting a hand to his stomach. Ozzy picked him up and squeezed. "Let's get some fire out of your belly so you feel better." The man burped up a mixture of smoke, fire, and the smell of rum. Ozzy set him down and repeated the process with the other two. Soon all three were awake and asking questions.

Ozzy had Derek sit and talk with them while he helped Woodrat. The captain was moving around the creature, forcing smoke into every crevice he could find. "We need to fill it with smoke for some flavor and then slowly add the heat. It will sit and cook for a day and be as tasty and tender as slow-roasted octopus."

The giant heaved himself up and dipped his head to Mariah and Derek before talking to Ozzy and Woodrat. "I'm happy as a pet clam to find myself with a crew that takes their cooking seriously. That was a bad situation you saved us from. I've walked a week on an empty stomach and was happy to find some solid land, but that damned crab was as hungry as I was. Those lads offered my oversized carcass a spot in their boat, and I owed them a debt, so I couldn't leave them. Now I think we all owe you one. I go by the name Butterbelly when traveling away from home. Over there is Finn, Galen, and Raj. We sailed on the Golden Truffle out of Queensland."

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Woodrat finished his cooking and shook the large man's hand. "Captain Woodrat of the Splinter. Good to meet you, and glad to help. I sailed on the Truffle two dozen years ago. Is old Bilgey still the captain?"

Butterbelly was careful as he shook hands with a man who only came up to his waist. "Captain Bilgewater retired and is bouncing grandchildren on his knees. One of the queens gave him the honor of making him an Earl or Duke or something fancy. His eldest son, Bartholomew, was Captain after him. Last I saw, he yelled at the crew to take to the boats and get to safety. The Truffle was dead in the smoke. No sails left, and half the crew had become charred and were tearing apart the hull after we locked them below. A bad situation, and I hope that Captain Bart and the rest of the lads made it out."

The other sailors had wandered over as they talked. Finn nodded his head at Woodrat. "Begging your pardon, captain, but did I hear you say you had a ship? I'd be happy to sign on as crew if she's seaworthy. I think all three of us would." The other two nodded.

Woodrat looked them over. They had the look and dress of common seamen, not the surliness he'd seen in Tommy's crew. "I can use hardworking sailors, but I'll tell you right now that it's not an easy voyage, and my crew tends to stir up more trouble than most. Standard shares of loot, and we eat better than most." He smiled broadly. “And the loot and experience have been better than most as well.”

Finn seemed to speak for all three after some whispered discussions. They’d taken note of the captain’s sword and uncommonly strange crew. The talk of extra food and loot sounded good to them. And, of course, their options were limited. "That sounds good to us, captain."

Woodrat turned to Butterbelly. "And what about you? Take a spot in the crew, or are you walking off on your own?"

The giant looked out over the choppy smoke. "Plenty of heat in the smoke to walk up top, that's for sure. I was surprised as the rest of the crew when that eruption happened. I came up on the last one twenty years back and have been enjoying my vacation on the smoky seas ever since. Unless I get a message saying they need me back in Muspelheim, I’ll sail with you for another dozen."

"One thing though, before I sign on..." He didn't get to finish the sentence.

A huge reptilian head rose from the smoke next to them on a neck fifty feet long and eight feet thick. The creature opened a maw full of needle-sharp teeth and a long tongue. Ozzy thought it looked like a type of marine dinosaur, more than a dragon or a snake. That theory was confirmed as two huge flippers emerged from the smoke and pressed down into the sargasso, and it lifted part of its immense bulk from the smoke. The whole area the group was standing on started tilting and sliding into the sea from the weight of the creature.

Longneck Sea Queen (Plesiosauroid Aristocratical) Level 57 Elite Boss

Deepswimmer, ?????, Voracious Hunter, Swift, Intelligent, ???, Very Hungry

Woodrat looked at the creature and yelled in a commanding voice, "Run inland. This isn't a foe to fight!" Everyone scrambled to get away from the quaking area of the floating island.

Mariah was suddenly in front of the group in the form of a white cyclone and threw out such a blast of wind that Woodrat and the sailors were thrown thirty feet inland, where they quickly got up and ran. Derek had been safe already. Ozzy had brought the ship's boat to the pile of crab parts, and he was loading it up when the creature appeared. Butterbelly fell backward as the sargasso under his feet tilted and became unstable. Ozzy had managed to keep his feet and was turning to run when he saw the firewalker fall and the Longneck begin its strike on him.

Woodrat had told him that the creatures of the smoke were having trouble with this much heat and were coming to the surface or onto the sargasso because of it. He hoped that meant it might be averse to some more heat. The Butcher opened his mouth, and fire exploded out of him, bathing the Longneck in flames as if he was trying to light a sail on the Splinter. The Sea Queen was overheated and starving. The smell of roasting crab had drawn it to this little nest of creatures. It was surprised at the sudden burst of heat and drew away from it.

The surprise lasted perhaps ten seconds before the huge creature knew it had little to fear from the flames. Ozzy had vented over 10,000 heat at the monster, dangerously dropping his heat in his furnace. But even that much was just a sting to a creature in the sixth Tier. The surprise was long enough for Ozzy to throw his Trammelian Chain and snare Butterbelly before he turned and ran, tossing the firewalker into the boat with the crab’s legs and dragging it all in his wake. The Sea Queen wasn't after such small, quick prey, not when she had a tasty meal in front of her. The huge head took ahold of the delicious cooked crab and began ripping it apart.

The party went inland as far as they needed to find a large ship and climb aboard, feeling much safer with a deck beneath them. They stayed there long after the monster ate its fill of crab and then took the rest with it down into the smoke. As luck would have it, there were no charred aboard the ship. Mariah ventured into the hold as a whirlwind and brought up a small keg of what turned out to be the worst rum any of them had ever drunk. The taste stopped no one from drinking several mugs. She said a dozen more of the small kegs and two dozen large hogsheads were in the hold. A stunning amount of drink for a crew of their size.

The exhausted sailors went to sleep, as did Derek. Woodrat turned toward Butterbelly. "We were talking of you signing on as crew before we were so rudely interrupted by that crab-stealing beastie. You had a question?"

Butterbelly smiled, showing bright white teeth that contrasted with his jet-black skin. "Yes, I did. I was going to point out that I hold the rank of Mate and was then going to challenge the little guy over there for his spot on your ship. But I'm over that now and know my place. I'll sign on as your second mate and not give Mr. Ozzy a bit of grief."

He turned to Ozzy. "But that doesn't mean I don't owe you a debt. You could have turned and run, and not a man alive would have blamed you. Instead, you nearly blew yourself cold to distract that lizard and drag my sorry ass to safety. You've got a spot at my clan's table whenever you visit—the best food in Muspelheim. My mom knows how to barbecue a rhino and keep it tender. She brushes on bear fat to keep it moist."

The night passed without something else attacking, and Ozzy learned a few new recipes.

You have learned the recipe for Tender Bear-Braised Barbecued Rhino.

You have learned the recipe for Herb Encrusted Baked Shark.

You have learned the recipe for Fire Roasted Boar in Rum Sauce.

You have gained a new option for Heritage.