17. The Robot That's Got Hands

Feverfew and I march on into the alien corridor, as proper Sammos rather than colleagues who barely know each other.

Well, that’s not entirely true. I still know barely anything about my Beastkin buddy, except that he’s a softie and just an all-around swell guy. Right now, that’s more than enough to go on.

Our shared objective is clear with or without a language barrier. We need to find a way to get the hell out of this glitched dimension and return to normalcy. All the better if, along the way, we manage to find the rest of our party.

This section of the Portal Realm begins much the way the other two did, with a straight narrow corridor. Ranger and ‘Swordsman’ (in air quotes) inch their way forward with cautious steps—Feverfew because he’s just a all-around cautious guy, and I because I’m wary of the bullshit that’s about to pop up at any moment.

Except it doesn’t pop up. The bullshit, that is. We make our way through the corridor without event or ambush. Which, to most people, should feel like good news.

Not to us cautious boys though. This is too easy. Feverfew’s hackles are up and my spidey-sense is tingling, because we’ve both seen too many examples of how this type of scenario plays out (albeit the examples I draw from have all been fictional).

The corridor eventually ends with an apparent door, distinct still from the Portal screens and shaped more like the shutters you might see on a sci-fi spaceship. You know the kind, with two big sliding panels and this ominous vibe to it like it’s clearly going to release some eldritch horror the moment an intrepid scientist or an over-this-shit space marine tries to open it.

Intrepid Ranger and never-wanted-this-shit Swordsman stop in front of the door and exchange a look. Feverfew’s says: “looks like we’ve got no other choice”. I try to say with mine: “you first?”.

Either Feverfew correctly interprets my chickenshit expression, or he can’t trust me to make first contact with whatever eldritch being hides behind the shutters. He reaches for one of the panels, but then both panels slide open soundlessly before his paw even touches them.

No physical interactions needed here. The Portal Realm responds only to—and seeks to punish—the Portallen’s foolish intent.

The door opens into a massive, dome-shaped room. It’s just as eery-blue as the rest of the Portal Realm and mostly empty save for a big blue glob in its dead center.

Ohhh, I don’t like the look of this. This is giving me Elden Ring flashbacks, as in this is clearly a ‘boss arena’ and I’m about to get my ass whooped. All that’s missing is a sick cutscene where the boss utters something cryptic and badass that I’d need explained to me by LoreTubers.

Except… I can’t afford to get my ass whooped. Because getting my ass whooped here means death, and no, nothing has changed with me not wanting to die and all that. Whatever this blue glob turns out to be, I—we—need to first-try this thing.

The glob goes through its transformation the moment Feverfew and I step foot in the room. Later, in a much quieter moment, I would wonder about this. Why the transformation and why this exact timing? Almost as if the undifferentiated glob had been waiting to see who its challengers might be…

In any case, the BBG (Big Blue Glob) sculpts itself into a surprisingly more ‘eldritch’ appearance than one might expect of a giant alien robot.

It’s like if that Wacky Tube Terminator from the first corridor had a baby with a sea monster, and that baby grew up to identify as an Elden Ring boss. Thing’s got a towering industrial-sized humidifer for a trunk, with more vents on it than there are pores on my face. This humidifier then acts as a central axis from which sprout out at least a dozen tentacles.

Some of these tentacles are just that: tentacles. Which is bad enough on its own, but then at least some are also shaped like laser guns, clearly specialized for ranged attacks. Whatever they are, they all dance and undulate in this hypnotic pattern that’s a bit nauseating to watch.

First a Dragon That Breathes Fire, and now a Robot That’s Also a Motherfucking Kraken? Need I remind you that this is only baby’s Second Boss? This Isekai sure don’t fuck around…

While I’m standing there thinking of all the ways I could die to this thing, Feverfew is already on the move. The Ranger had an arrow nocked as he stepped into the arena, and now he lets it fly.

And the arrow too transforms—into a spiraling ray of fire that zooms straight toward the Kraken.

Elemental arrows! I knew the Beastkin Rangers had some kind of magic to them, but this is my first time seeing that magic in action.

My excitement is short-lived, however, as the fire-arrow fizzles away the moment it touches the Kraken’s vapor aura.

Because, yeah, apparently it’s not enough for this thing to have tentacles that shoot laser beams. It also gets to hide behind its own vapor shield bullshit.

Feverfew is undeterred, though. He fires off three more arrows in quick succession, each of which turns into a different element during its flight.

First, there’s a razor-sharp icicle thing, followed by a jagged block of stone, then a spark of lightning. Fire, water, earth, and air. The classic. You love to see it.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Except none of the arrows make a dent in the Kraken. Its vapor shield is too strong and versatile, able to rebuff each of the four elements with ease.

Through it all, Feverfew is as calm and impassive as a house cat that’s about to knock a coffee mug off the kitchen table. He’s in pure murder ninja mode, and he continues to dart around the tentacles and fire off elemental arrows.

It occurs to me that he’s not being stubborn, bashing his head against a problem with the same ineffective solution. No, he’s cycling through his elements and trying out different patterns, experimenting to find a combination that could crack the safe. There’s definite method to his murder ninja madness.

And as much as I want to grab a front-row seat and watch it all go down, I of course can’t do that. The Kraken hasn’t been idle while Feverfew does his experimenting; it’s also doing its thing, throwing out tentacle swipes and shooting out laser beams.

Unlike the erstwhile Tube Man and its readable, alternating patterns of attack, this Kraken boss has no qualms about putting all dozen of its limbs to work at once. The one saving grace is that its ‘trunk’ appears to be rooted to the floor, meaning it can’t move around the arena on top of being a general tentacled nuisance.

The fight’s still fucking hectic, though, and I’ve no idea how I even manage to survive it. Feverfew has his feline agility and evasive skills honed from years of adventuring. I, on the other hand, have to rely on positioning and instincts honed from years of pretend-adventuring, plus a whole lot of luck.

Oh, and the STSG. When in doubt, swing a sword that spits out guns. [Glock Parry] still works to deflect laser beams if I time it just right, and [Spin to Glock] is surprisingly effective at dissuading tentacles that try to sweep me off my feet.

Still, even with the STSG, it’s real skin-of-the-teeth stuff. The Kraken shows no sign of slowing, while I grow more sluggish with each swing of the sword. One mistake would kill me, and it can only be a matter of time before I slip up.

But I’m not fighting alone, and my Sammo once again comes through in the clutch.

An elemental multi-shot. It’s the kind of churlish disregard for real-world dynamics that would have Earthling archery purists clutching their pearls.

Feverfew manages to break through the Kraken’s defenses—at least temporarily—by combining his fire and ice arrows into one attack. A vortex of fluctuant temperature and pressure that disrupts the vapor enough to create a single point of weakness (I don’t know if this explanation makes any sense; Psychology major here, not magical physicist).

It’s the combination that cracks the safe. The Ranger follows this up with a third arrow that closely follows the first pair: a spark of lightning that connects with the Kraken’s central trunk and—

Bzzzztttttt!!

And causes the mother of all short circuits. Welp, apparently this alien robot is as susceptible to the laws of nature as real-world ones.

The Kraken’s trunk sort of bends over like a deflated Wacky Tube. All its tentacles—both melee and ranged—power down and flop lifelessly onto the arena floor. There are even these little electric sparks that arc all around the Kraken’s body, almost like a visual indicator for its ‘electro-shock’ status.

The only thing that’s still up is its vapor shield, thicker than ever as if to protect its downed host. I guess the vapor somehow operates separately from the main body? Weird shit.

Weird and inexplicable, but right now, the only thing that matters is that I’m up. Feverfew did the hard work of paralyzing the boss, and now I have to finish the job. Use this window of opportunity to cut through the vapor bullshit with my own STSG bullshit.

[Dragonclaw]! [Dragonclaw]! [Dragonclaw]!

Bit by bit, segment by segment, I burn and chop the tentacles down to size. I do this, not with powerful swings of a claymore like you’d expect of someone with the actual skills to do that, but with my own method: stabby motions that summon blocks of activated C-4.

Each time the Kraken’s physical body shrinks in size, more and more of the vapor shield also dissipates. Eventually, I cut down enough of the Kraken to reach its core.

There’s a shallow depression in the middle of its trunk. A pair of red Terminator eyes stare out of it, comically small in relation to the rest of the robot’s size. Basic pattern recognition tells me this is the Kraken’s ‘weak spot’, the same object I’d earlier stabbed to end Tube Man’s life.

Weak spot? Now that the vapor shield is mostly gone, I think I know just the right tool for this part of the job.

But as I raise the STSG into an overhead stance, just for one brief moment, I hesitate.

Should I be the one to deal this killing blow? After all, we wouldn’t even have this chance—heck, I wouldn’t even be alive—if it weren’t for Feverfew’s heroics and ingenuity. I wouldn’t want to ‘steal his kill’, especially if it’s something that matters to these Portallen.

But even that brief delay has taken too long. The electro-shock effect has worn off, and the Kraken stirs again with an audible mechanical groaning.

I finish my overhead swing in a panic, and not a moment too soon. [Glock Strike] at point blank range. The magic pistol knows exactly what to aim for, and buries a bullet right between the creepy robot eyes.

The remaining vapor disappears in an instant. The machinery stops churning just as soon as it’d begun. The red glow fades from the Terminator eyes, leaving behind only hollow, transparent shells.

I don’t need an ‘in-game notification’ to know that the boss has been defeated. The Kraken is dead.

I take an unsteady step backwards, then lean on the STSG for support. My legs are shaking badly—a delayed fear response from almost letting the Kraken recover from its paralysis.

Then, even as I watch on in numb relief, one of the robot eyes falls out of its socket and clatters onto the floor. I stare at it for a second, then something tells me I should pick it up for a closer look.

Out of its socket and absent its Terminator glow, the ‘eye’ kind of looks like a quartz crystal. It’s also shaped vaguely like a strawberry.

I gasp as the realization hits me. It’s another gemstone! My loot for dealing the killing blow to the robot Kraken.